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J. G. LEE, Designer. 



The Borrowed Bride : 



A Fairy Uove Liegend of C)onegal, 



PATRICK SARSFIELD CASSIDY. 



Illustrated by Fred. Morgan, Madeline D. Morton, 
John G. Lee, and others. 



NEW YORK : 
Holt Brothers, 17 to 27 Vandewater St. 



^-w^ 



fS 



JO 



Copyrighted, By P. S. Cassidy. 
All rights reserved. 



Illustrations by the 

Process Etching and Engraving Co., 

6i Beekman St., New York. 



j^^^^^^^^^J-<^,e.^^^<^ y:^ 










yvfc- . 





CONTENTS. 



FANCY TITLE PAGE, 

DEDICATION. . - - - 

INTRODUCTORY, - 

PRELUDE, - - - - - 

DUAN I. -The Plot, 

" II. — The Abduction. - 
" III.— The Ceann's Vigil, 
IV. — The Sibyl's Story, - 
V. — The Voice and Bell, 
" VI. — The Ransom, 
" VII.— The Return, - 

NOTES, ------ 



PAGE. 

3 

7 

II 

13 

- 15 
33 

- 51 
65 

- 131 
153 

- 175 
201 





INTRODUCTORY. 




^^/■^ -r^ HE word "borrowed,'' in fairy lore and witchcraft, carries the 
significance of "ransomed," as may be found in the ballad of 
Kempion and many others. 

The legend of the Shie Goath (^Shee'gy — i. e. fairy whirlwind) 
O'Boyles is still told in the Rosses, a romantically wild district 
in the barony of Boylagh — land of O'Boyle — in the County 
Donegal, and there still lingers a belief that it has a solid foun- 
dation of fact; in proof of which the simple-minded people, full of faith in all 
respects, insist that the descendants of the princely house of O'Boyle are still attended 
by a Lanan Shie (friendly female fairyj who protects them in danger and preserves 
them from actual want. 

The O'Boyles — a numerous and martial clan in the ancient time, were related 
by consanguinity, as well as tributary to, the O'Donnells, Dynasts of Tir-Conal — a 
line of great chiefs who possessed the noblest blood that Ireland has ever known, 
and who made the most heroic struggles to maintain Irish independence of any of 
the royal houses of Ireland. Although the O'Boyles, like many other once powerful 
Irish familes, are almost extinct on their native soil, Boylagh, as Dr. John O'Dono- 
van, the eminent antiquarian and scholar, observes, " is the same now as it was two 
thousand years ago. The same Celtic voice that shouted on its hills in the time of 
Conal Gulban, is still the sound that is heard. It is the language of nature softened 
by the bards.'' 

The scenery of the Rosses, with its gloomy moors and mountain tarns ; its 
dreamy glens, musical with their many streams filled with trout little acquainted 
with the fly ; its azure peaks, Alpine in their aspect, and in the absence of all ver- 
dure, with their crowns of huge boulders thrown together in fantastic shape, im- 
presses the visitor as by a weird spell of mingled admiration and awe. Mrs. Mu- 
lock Craik says the Rosses "opened out a world of wonder and beauty" to her 
charmed vision, and adds : " what a sky arched over it ! gray, still, but brightened 

II 



with patches of amber and rose, coloring the distant mountains and reflected in 
every tiny lake. No description is possible. I can only say go and see ! " 

Truly a place for fairy lore and legend to linger. The peasantry, a fine, uncon- 
taminated race, may, to the stranger, repudiate belief in their fairy legends, of which 
they possess a rich accumulation, but at the sam.e time will tell them in a tone of 
semi-religious reverence strongly suggestive of an abiding substratum of faith deep 
down in their natures that perhaps the legends were true at the time the events 
happened ! 

The spirit mythology of the Irish is said to have come down from a strange 
tribe — the Tuatha-de-Danaans , meaning Magic God Almoners, who ruled in Ireland 
some thirteen hundred years before the Christian era. Recent researches show that 
this tribe or sect of religious magicians was among the earliest that migrated from 
ancient Iran, the cradle of the human race. They preceded the classic Greeks in 
Europe, and were probably related to the American mound builders and serpent- 
worshippers, traces of whom in the Ohio valley are now being examined by a 
commission. The notes at the back of the volume may be worth perusal in this 
respect. 

The descriptions of dress, jewelry, weapons, etc., given in the text, are conserv- 
ative reproductions of what may be found in ancient Irish MSS., which in turn are 
borne out by the gold crowns, collars, rings, bracelets, brooches, anklets, brazen 
swords, spears, domestic vessels, cinerary urns, cairns with sculptured chambers — not 
paralleled in the British Isles — arrow heads, antique spurs, bronze ornaments and im- 
plements, as well as articles of personal adornment whose exact use is now unknown, 
that have been found lying deep, often as many as twenty feet, in bogs that were 
primeval forests long before becoming bogs. 

Ancient Ireland — golden Ireland — richer in antiquities and Pelasgic remains, 
in heroic traditions and spiritual creations than aim' st any other country of Europe, 
affords an almost unequalled field for the fascinating study of early mankind, their 
modes of life and thought, and their conceptions of creation. English writers have 
for centuries been maliciously endeavoring to rob Ireland of all interest for educated 
mankind, no doubt on the robber's theory that by successfully maligning his victim 
he justifies his own criminality before the world. They have only lately practically 
stopped doing this, because the world no longer believes them. When Ireland is 
free from the distractions of political strife consequent on her resistance to alien 
oppression — a strife that for over seven hundred years has been interrupted only by 
periods of national exhaustion — her sons will find a labor of love in disclosing her 
ancient greatness — in bringing forth her dimmed but imperishable glories. Pride in 
the past gives inspiration to the present and assurance of distinction to the future 

P. S. CASSIDY. 
New York, Hallow Eve, 1892, 




pray of purple heather hells, 

"T'hat ore\\' in pure and tender air, 
I fain would plant wherever dwells 

Vhe soul of Fancy, free and fair'. 
If faint tl]e fragrance of its flowerg, 

'That but bespeaks a longer day ; 
Vhe passioned perfunne tl]at o'erpo\\^eps 

Is prelude of a quick decay. 

/X.nd tl;]is l]a.s bloomed far ages long 

In lonely but romantic cliine, 
V/hose people love, in tale and song, 

"^Po stray in Fairyland betime. 
iXnd well it ig to cro§s the stile, 

When weary on life ,s dusty way ; 
Vo wander in the woodg awhik^ 

A.nd yirld tci nature s sorcery. 

©Id tale§ car) give to mind and heart 

/^ holiday's refreshnnent, and. 
Closed up the ledgers of tlge mai't, 

Cause faitl) and feeling to expand. 
I only wisl] this slender spray 

N]lc\y find a k'ind, cc>ngenial soil ; 
It gave to mc- a holida^' 

Witlj n^uclj of pleasure, nauoht of toil. 




14 




f I^e El0i 




i6 




T 



HE Halloweve moon arose white on the Rosses 
To robe in soft glamor the ghosts coming out;' 
And near was the hour when the shades of past mortals 
Return to the earth and go flitting about: — 




Their yearly release from the place intermediate, 

Where judgment they wait to some permanent sphere, 

And while in suspense, on each eve of All Hallow's, 
They solace may find amid scenes they lov^ed here. 



l8 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Revered though the dead, there was no wish to meet them, 

So heart-timid mortals kept closely in-doors ; 
Rut Boylagh's young chieftain, who courted adventure, 

Substantial or spectral, was rambling the moors. 
The night was uncanny, the prospect was fearsome. 

But these only suited his temper the more. 
" I'll whistle," he said; "it brings company always — 

A ghost, sprite or mortal will come to the fore. 

"Some power over shades may remain still with Shamain,- 

Long worshipped in Ir when her mountains were young; 
When Baal-fires Druidic flashed far from each hill-top. 

Ere Patrick's new song of salvation was sung. 
And Patrick has told that the souls still unsettled 

This night may come down from the spheres overhead; 
And surely the fairy host, far as the Lochrus, 

Will come with the caol sJiie to dance with the dead."^ 

He peered through the night mists, but fairy nor phantom 

Rewarded the anxious appeal of his eye; 
He saw but the vapor drift in from the ocean, 

The clouds sweeping past o'er the wind-fretted sky. 



THE PLOT. 



19 



Nor mortal responded, nor voice broke the silence; 

He heard but the boom of the breakers afar, 
That surged o'er the ledges and foamed at the boulders 




Which stood in resistance on Keadue's wild bar. 
No crawlings of fear chilled the blood in his body, 

And yet as by instinct he felt in his breast ; 
No Agnns^ was there to preserve from misfortune, 

And wildly his heart gave a throb of unrest. 
" No blessed protection my person makes sacred 

From evil," he said, "on this wild, haunted night; 
I stand equal handed, I hold no advantage, 

Whatever presents itself — demon or sprite ! " 



20 



THE BORROWED P.RIDE. 



But scarce had he spoken, and grasped his staff firmer, 

When passed swept the s hie- goat h^v^'ith. breath-stopping rush; 

And then, in the calm that succeeded, strange music 
Arose from the heart of 




THE OLD FAIRY BUSH. 



"I knew," he exclaimed, beating time to the music, 
"This night would be sure some adventure to bring; 

Their voices sound sweet, like the TuatIia-de-Danaa7i's° 
And sprightly the air of the song that they sing." 



THE PLOT. 



21 



Song of the Fairy Knights, 

(fittrol. 



"Copyrighted." 



Moderato. 



.. knights are we of mer-ry sport Watching for the right time, 

2. Brave-ly do we is - sue out, In the gloaming's mid-light, 

3. Now the mid-night hour has come. Fairy day's broad noon bright ; 
4! Poor dull mor- tals pit - y we. Tied to toil and blind to bea uty. 



^^^^^^^^^ 




In the day we hold our court. Where the cor - al 

And we hold our rev - el - rout In the woods and 

High the lamps hang in the dome. All the world is 

All the beau - ty that there be, But that mor - tals 



=4=^4—^ 



^^E^=iE 




maids re - sort 

all a - bout, 

now our home, 

can - not see. 



Or in lone - ly rath and fort 

Play - ing tricks on mor - tal lout, 

And by lands and seas we roam, 

While, gal - lants, we ram - ble free, 



22 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



?>- T~- g= 
ti— I — — 



-K— h-*- 



Efci 



^^ 



^ 



at= a J-*L U 



Wait - irig for the night - time, Wait - ing for the night - time. 

Wait - ing for the mid - night. Wait - ing for the mid - night. 

In the silv'ry moon- light. In the silv'ry moon -light, 

Sport our on- ly du - ty, Sport our on - ly du - ty, 




^ 



-tmz 



-^- 



-±iz 



Wait - ing for the night - time ; 

Wait - mg for the mid - night; 

In the sil - v'ry moon - light ; 

Sport our on - ly du - ty ; 



Or in lone - ly 

Play - ing tricks on 
And by lands and 
While, gal - lants, we 




rath 
mor 
seas 
ram 



and 

tal 



fort,.. 

lout,., 
we roam, 

ble freey.. 



Wait - ing for the night - time. 

Wait - ing for the mid - night. 

In the sil - v'ry moon - light. 

Sport our on - ly du - ty. 






^a 



^E^ 



ritardo. 



J23^t^ 



THE PLOT. 23 

The music was hushed and the patter of footsteps, 
Like rain on dry leaves, took the place of the song; 

A legion of sprites shook their lamps at the mortal 
And fled with mock laughter; he followed along. 

The braes of Helcruit, 




WHERE THE FAIRV RING GLISTENED 



In verdure perennial, arose on his view, 
And sudden from nowhere, a bit of a fear- sine' 
Familiarly hailed him with 



24 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




" HOW DO YOU DO ?" 



He doffed his plumed hat and he looked very humble, 

As suppliants do when assistance they court; 
" 'Tis fitting," he said, "for a chief of high courage 

To aid a fair princess, and relish good sport. 
She is fair as the dawn when it rises in splendor 

And kisses the hills of the Isle of the Blest, ** 
Her sweet eyes are clearer, more sparkling and laughing. 

Than sun-gilded waves rolling in from the west. 



THE PLOT. 25 

" Her tresses are glossy and long as the mermaid's, 

When fresh from the waves they are combed in the sun ; 
No maid in our realm so fair- featured and graceful 

As this earthly fair one my fancy has won. 
I'm king of the fairies, in all the wide Rosses, 

And power over mortals you know I possess ; 
With luck and good fortune I well will reward you, 

If you will but aid me in this my distress." 

"To help you, my man," said O'Boyle in amusement, 

" I feel quite disposed ; but pray what would you do 
With flesh and blood maiden, so beauteous and glowing, 

Who never was meant for a creature like you ? " 
" I'll make her the queen of my sov'ran dominions, 

Where scores of princesses shall wait on her breath ; 
I'll waft on her spirit the spell of enchantment 

That looks like, but saves from, what mortals call death. 

" I'll take her away to the land ever youthful, 
To fair Tir-na-iiog,"^ where nor age nor decay 

Can enter its borders, and mirth, youth and beauty 
Unchangeable reign in one long holiday. 



26 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



'Tis there that no death with its gloom-featured presence, 
Nor trouble, nor sorrow, nor sickness can come ; 




Where drowned in the songs that enrapture the senses, 
The voice of distress must forever be dumb. 



THE PLOT. 27 

" On fairest green hill of Moy Mell'° shall her palace 

Shine forth like a star in the azure abyss ; 
And trees, plants and flowers shall ravish her vision, 

The fairest e'er grew in the garden of bliss. 
The sun comes down there when his setting is brightest, 

And rests for the night in his chariot of gold ; 
The moon and the stars have their homes in its valleys. 

The summer is endless and nothing grows old. 

" How sweeter by far for a maiden who loves not 

The wars and the ways that rude mortals employ ; 
Whose soul is attuned to the harp of the spirit 

That breathes but the soft notes of peace, love and joy. 
There youthful forever, surrounded by pleasure — 

A pleasure that never knows sorrow nor pain — 
What happiness awaits her, what joy shall possess her, 

Secure from the woes in mortality's train." 

" I like your conceit, and full fair is your picture; 

You hold bright ideas," the Ceann " made reply, 
" And as for myself, when good cause courts adventure, 

I long to jump at it like trout at a fly." 



28 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

" A crock of red gold shall be yours, and a banquet 
Before we depart will we have from good store, 

For cold are the night winds and long is the journey 
From here to the castle of proud Cathal Mor." 

" But not unto us will it long be, or lonesome ; 

My wish, all potential, can roll back the miles ; 
And hark, on the north-winds, the souls of the dead men 

Are rushing through space in the cloudland's defiles. 
And, look you, how swift in their white, fleecy feathers 

The swan maidens sail in the sea of the sky ; 
'Tis night for a mortal to ransom his spirit 

And leave the dull earth for a flash ere he die. 

" Though prince of earth fairies, my word extends, also, 

Throughout the dominions of water and air ; 
Of air was my sire, and of earth was my mother, 

And thus double powers as a birthright I share. 
The water queen, prizing my courage and beauty. 

Has made me a privileged knight of her court; 
Then dread not the journey, for earth, air and water 

But wait to assist in my venture or sport." 



THE PLOT. 



29 



The gay little wight drew his sword from its scabbard — 
A meteor bolt '^ with the point polished thin — 

And striking the ground, and repeating a cantrap, 
The earth opened up and the pair turned in. 

And there was 




A BANUUET HALL FLr FOR A MONARCH, 



The tables were loaded, the glasses were filled; 
Great haunches of venison smoked from the sideboards, 
And liquors were there by no mortal distilled. 



30 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Wild boar from Glenlehin ; red salmon from Clady, 
Plump grouse from the Glenties — a royal repast ; 

And strong on the mortal, with appetite biting, 
Came down the temptation to slacken his fast. 

But fatal he knew 'twere to touch fairy viands, 
And waved the temptation away from his sight; 

The Feadh RigJi '^ laughed loud and an antidote tossed him, 

"Take that, and no harm can befall you to-night." 

In feasting and jesting the heart groweth merry. 

The spirit expands to the flow of good cheer, 
And, eke, to extend to the guest special honor, 

A dozen fair maids at a signal appear. 
" I seek not to tempt you to stop in our kingdom," 

The Feadh Righ made speech, "for I need you to-night ; 
But when in the future you feel like a frolic, 

You know where your heart can be cheerful and light." 

" Good fairy, come answer," the chieftain responded, 
" Your bribes I ignore ; but I long for the fun. 

Has maiden consented ? " " Come on," cried Fmvarra,'- 
" Unless that we hasten her joy is undone. 



THE PLOT. 

To-morrow, by midday, King Cathal the haughty 
Will force her to wed to the woe of her heart." 

"Ah well," cried O'Boyle, noting not the evasion, 
"To rescue a maiden count well on my part." 



31 





32 



11. 



T^l^e .oj^bductiei^ 




34 



" Step forth on this sod." said the kingly sprite blandly 
It was \\\Q. fand sliaughraii '" and rose in the air; 




They rode through the night mists with speed of a comet, 
'Till Cruaghan's tall towers in the moonlight shone fair. 

35 



36 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

All bright blazed the lights in the halls of O'Conor, 
Far known throughout Erinn as Proud Cathal Mor, 

Who ruled over Connacht, head chief of Siol Murray,'' 
And viewed the Ard RigJiship '* as fortune in store. 

Though harsh had he grown from fierce contests in battle, 

One spot in his heart still unhardened remained, 
And this was a shrine where he worshipped Finoula, 

The one only daughter his household contained ; 
The pulse of his heart and the pride of his being. 

The light of his eye and the joy of his life ; 
The Red Hand O'Neill has to worst him in tourney, 

Before he would grant him his daughter to wife. 

For these were the days when ambition for conquest 

And fever for power fired the blood of each chief; 
When war is the ruler heart-thoughts must be silent. 

Campaigning is long and love-making is brief 
And hands of fair maids are but links matrimonial. 

Uniting proud houses aspiring to reign ; 
And thus with O'Conor, who, making the compact, 

Thought not of his daughter's heart-pleasure or pain. 



THE ABDUCTION. 



37 



The winds, cold and high, whistled sharp round the towers, 

And rattled the chains on portcullis and gate ; 
But sounds of high revelry reaching the outside, 

Bespoke a gay company, spirits elate. 
By gift of revealment the elhn sprite opened 

Two visions that dazzled the eyes of O' Boyle — 
A banquet hall filled with high chiefs and retainers — 

A bevy of maidens his soul might entoil. 




The monarch sits high on the ogam-carved /?/(r/?/^z "^ — 



38 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

King's seat at the banquet — his face to the south ; 
Cups passed round the tables from eastward to westward, 

To honor the sun as a charm against drouth. ^° 
O'Neill, the Hy Niall, proud blood of the proudest. 

Descendant of him of the Hostages Nine, 
The seat of the champion, full facing the monarch, 

Maintains with the dignity born of his line. 

Wise Olavs^' of learning and lords of the tribute 

Surround the long tables that flank either side. 
While bards of soft speech tune their harp-songs the sweetest 

In praise of Finoula — to-morrow a bride ! 
And she hides away in her chamber, surrounded 

By hand- maidens chosen for beauty and grace — 
Nor maidens more fair than the daughters of Connacht 

The hand of an artist might chisel or trace. 

tVll young and gay-hearted and prone to the impulse 
That prompts playful maidens love-fortunes to know, 

They practice the tricks that unriddle the future, 
For knowledge that Halloweve night can bestow — 

The fealty of lovers, the prospect of husbands, 

How soon will they wed, and shall love always reign ? 



THE ABDUCTION. 



39 



And gladly Finoula takes part in the pastime 
To find in the mirth a reprieve from heart pain 




"These hazel nuts" — she touched her harp- 

" Will tell to me the tale, 
If love shall stay still by my side, 

Or wanton like the gale. 
So here I place them on the hearth, 

Close side by side to burn ; 
If this one fly my love will die. 

And joy no more return. 



40 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

" And thus," the lady softly sang, 

" The test of Hallo weve 
Will tell me true if love be mine 

Or I am born to grieve. 
If near they come and brightly burn. 

Commingling flame with flame, 
O then my love is mine for aye, 

To love me still the same. 

" But if he lights not into flame, 

O sad my lot must be ; 
The one I love will love me not. 

For that is fate's decree. 
But see, he spreads his glowing flame, 

And wraps my flame around ; 
O joy, his love shall burn for aye. 

And I my heaven have found. 

" And yet — I know not what it is — 
A mystery o 'er me steals ; 

O'Neill I love not, though I wed, 
And at my feet he kneels. 



THE ABDUCTION. 41 

I feel my joy is not with him — 

The thought is past control ; 
My soul shrinks back from warrior rude, 

And seeks some gentler soul. 

" Some heart whose thoughts recoil from war, 

That wakes pale woman's sighs ; 
Whose name shall spread on wings of peace, 

And not on orph=ins' cries. 
And still the feeling grows with force, 

Some mystery doth impend ; 
But all a maid can do is pray 

May heaven her heart defend." 

Finoula ceased her plaintive song. 

" I know," she mused, " 'tis very wrong 

My heart should thus rebel ; 
But if sweet love in heaven is born, 
O why should earth, with impious scorn. 

The dream of bliss dispel ? 
I've thought it o'er, but do I find 
Enough to reconcile the mind 

That I should him refuse ? 



42 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Obedience is a father's right, 
And yet my heart still urges flight — 
How can a maiden choose ? " 

The sigh that heaved her bosom's dower 

Disclosed the pain she felt ; 
And, seizing the propitious hour, 
The fairy suitor gained the tower 




AND AT HER FOOTSTOOL KNELT ! 



THE ABDUCTION. 43 

" O fly with me, thou maiden bright, 
I'll save you from this sorrow's blight," 

The elfin wooer cried ; 
" Escape with me a lingering doom. 
More cruel than the cold, dark tomb — 

An unloved lover's bride ! " 

With sudden act he touched her lips 

And drank her breath away ; 
And in that one life-stealing sip 

The potent elf- spell lay ! 
Alas the fate of maid so fair, 

So born for wifely sway ! 

Through her being, swift and sudden, 

Subtle deadening currents sweep. 
Overpowering human senses 

In a spell profoundly deep ! 
With a tremor and a sigh. 
Limb relaxing, closing eye, 
She sinks beneath the elfin spell. 
Whose power no mortal can repel ! 



44 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



Lost to love, to kindred lost, 

Fairest she of maiden kind ! 
Sad the Bans hie s ivail^' is tossed 




m~e—m-e.-^(^- 






Upon the blustering midnight wind ! 
Fatal proof that sorrow's arms 

Around a princely house have twined ! 



THE ABDUCTION. 45 

And now that form of gift and grace — 

That well might be of angel race, 

In all its tranquil charms so sweet, 

And in its death-like face so fair. 

Is swiftly lifted from its seat 

Upon a swelling gust of air. 

All shrinking back the handmaids stand. 

Unfit to lift restraining hand ; 

And speechless in a palsied daze 

They watch in awe a golden haze, 

Like to a rainbowed summer cloud. 

Or to a saint-soul's luminous shroud, 

Encircling all the chamber vast, 

As crimson dawn of day might cast 

Its darting, fire-impregnate light 

Upon the deathbed of the night ! 

And in great weaving wreathes and swirls 

Around the Floating Form it curls 

Until from out the vapory fold 

Appears a radiant, noiseless car ; 
Eye-dazzling vision to behold, 

And at its bow a flashing star ! 



46 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




In front, with arched and toss- 
ing manes, 

Six silvery steeds bear on the 
reins. 

That firm are held in tiny 
hand 

Of noble lady, wondrous 
fair — 

Queen Night Star, potent of 
command, 

Majestic Empress of the 
Air! 

And she the fairest of the 
three. 

Who rule the spirit realms, so 
vast. 

Of water, earth and ether 
free. 

Each one a separate sov- 
ereignty, 

^ — ^ In settled boundaries cast. 



THE ABDUCTION. 47 

Sweet as sainted dead, and pale 
As the lilies of the vale, 
Wrapped in robes of billowy mist. 
That wave in hues of amethyst, 
The fair and lost Finoula lies 

Within the Air Queen's equipage; 
And now the winds begin to rise 
With moanings like a lost soul's sighs. 

And whirl around in rage, 
That for an instant shakes the room. 
As if the universal doom 

Were crumbling earth away! 
Three times around the whirlwind swept. 
The handmaids to the corners crept. 

Nor power had they to pray ! 
A flash ! the circling storm has passed, 
All empty is the chamber vast — 

The car has passed in air ! 
Finoula's harp lies on the floor — 

Finoula is not there ! 



48 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

So brief the time that worketh fate, 
Whole destinies on moments wait, 
And seconds may precipitate 

The fall of cherished plans, 
That formed and nurtured with slow care 
Are still unstable as the air. 
And perish may, as wave might bear 

The record from the sands — 
Some mystic power or answered prayer 

Forbids the bridal banns ! 



So all O'Conor's hopes that rose, 
With evil promise to his foes 

When with the Chief O'Neill 
Alliance he, with wedlock's chain, 
Had pledged to common cause maintain, 

Now fall like shivered steel ; 
And shattered are the dreams that came 
And wrote in lettered fire his name, 

Head King of Erinn round ! 
Ambition at its highest play, 
With promise pointing out the way, 



THE ABDUCTION. 



49 




FALLS STRICKEN TO THE GROUND. 



Were he mortal, the abductor, 

How his head would pay the trover 
Ere a footman once had faltered 

Or a horseman drawn a rein. 
But no weapon, and no missile, 

Can appulse a fairy rover, 
Save a silver coin that never passed 

Through hand that itched for gain ; 



50 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And it must be shot by maiden 
Who had never longed for lover, 

Or by widow under forty 
Who declines to wed again ! 

Wild is the caoine in the halls of O'Conor ; 

Deepest the sorrow that has no relief, 
For nothing can banish the spell put upon her — 

O darkest of fortune and deepest of grief! 
Had she gone to the tomb in the morn of her beauty, 

Attended by abbot and wept by her clan. 
Consolation would come as a sweet Christian duty 

And mourning would claim but its rational span ; 
But living, yet lost, and returning, O never! 

Uncertainties torture, while certainties calm ; 
The fate that's unknown is a heartbreak forever, 

While fate ascertained, howe'er dark, has its balm. 
Slain in his breast is the heart of the father ; 

He falls as the blasted oak falls on the plain ; 
Nor Mass at the abbey, nor prayer to the Virgin, 

Nor power of his clans can his daughter regain, 
And, senses benumbed in affection's affliction. 

The earth is a desert — existence is pain. 



III. 



Tl^e Gcann's ^igil 




52 



THE chieftain alone by the fairy rath pondered, 
As faintly the dawn groped its way through the night ; 
And what could it be but a wild freak of fancy, 




Begot in the dark to dissolve in the light ? 
But no ! that fair vision his heart knew was real, 

That sweet sleeping face had communed with his soul, 

53 



54 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And roused all the energy natal to passion 

When love with the fervor of youth takes control. 

And now it is gone ! Has he lost it forever — 

That vision whose light a great joy on him shed ? 
And shall it illumine a fairy king's palace, 

While life is to him as the grave of the dead ? 
He thought of his fate and the fate of the fair one 

He saw, as a child sees the angeJs in dreams — 
A moment, and yet 'twas a vision immortal. 

Transfixing his heart with its ravishing beams. 

From whence is your advent, O Love, all so sudden ? 

A look ! and your spell, full of import, is cast ; 
From home of the mysteries you come in a moment. 

All powerful and fateful, to bless or to blast. 
The heart of the chief that so light in the morning, 

Sang gay as a lark and breathed free as the air, 
Now sighs overburdened and sinks m his bosom 

A captive to you and a prey to despair ! 

Each midnight, beside that lone rath on the ridges. 
Heart throbbing in tune with the sob of the sea, 



THE CEANN S VIGIL. 



55 



That, too, seems to mourn and reach out for some lost one, 
He watches and waits for what never may be ; 

No Feadh Righ or fairy court comes with the midnight 
To bear fair Finoula in pageant of state, 

And night after night more depressed by his vigil, 
He wastes in the gloom of his desolate fate. 

So passed the long nights. Now the Baal-fires are burning 

To wreath with effulgence the brow of May eve. 
And maidens, gay, laughing and singing in chorus. 




THE DOORSTEPS BESTREW WITH THE GARLANDS THEY WEAVE. 



56 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Great garlands of wild flowers, plucked in the meadows, 
Which tell that the Sun- god has risen again 

From death of the winter — the icy tomb rended — 
And scatters his smiles in gay bloom on the plain. 

No worker of witchcraft can pass o'er the threshold, 

When strewn with the May flowers sacred to Baal, 
Nor mother sJiie enter and steal from the cradle 

The fair human child and her changeling instal. 
And this is the night when the children of Shamain, 

Queen wife of the Sun- god, are granted most power 
O'er things that are mundane, and well do they practice 

The privilege vouchsafed, their own race to endower. 

For fairies and witches and elves of all species 

Are working with charm, incantation and spell ; 
And if human beings would frustrate ill projects 

To use all their wits it behooves them right well. 
The sJiie matron hunts through the homes of young mothers 

A nurse for her own fairy child to provide; 
The cluricaune knight rides abroad on his garnui 

To find 



THE CEANN'S vigil. 



57 




A FAIR DAUGHTER OF EARTH FOR A BRIDE. 



The white thorn sprays that were plucked ere the dayHght, 
Are bound with the bark of the green mountain ash, 

In wreaths to entwine round the horns of Bo-Bana,-' 
The milk-steahng witches to rout and abash. 



58 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



And childless herb women, those wise fairy doctors, 
Are down by the hedges, the glens and the meads, 

Agathering the herbs that distil healing potions 
To meet the distress of the seven human needs. 



And secretly down to the wells that are sacred. 

The newly-made brides steal in trembling and fear. 

For she who dips first in the 

well after midnight 
Brings luck to herself and her 
home for the year. 

Ill, ill is her luck if the well's 

virgin spirit "^ 
Already is caught by some 

other fond bride ; 
Or else through the night must 

she search till she findeth 
A well where no ais/ia grass'- 

floats on its tide. 

Young marrying maidens, perplexed by their suitors — 
(Of many who court them they know not the true) — 

Go seeking the vervain to place neath their pillows ; 
To-morrow, dream-told, they will know what to do. 




THE CEANN'S VIGIL, 59 

And so went the battle of good fighting evil, 
That still in our day fills the world with unrest ; 

The methods are changed, but the spirit remaineth, 
And good beneath evil still staggers distress'd. 

But nought in the sport, or the fear, or the frolic 

Could roiise Boylagh's chief from his dark, settled mood ; 

But fretful, alone, and with fever aburning 

All night by the rath of Belcruit has he stood. 

He heard the weird music that rose on the midnight, 




He saw the gay pageant — bright ladies were there 



6o THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

They passed him, and one gave a look of soft pity, 
For absent, she knew, was Finoula the Fair. 

Joy-featured the morning that ghdes o'er the hill-tops— 

May morning so fair and so breathing of balm 
That well might the perfume, which rises like incense 

From earth's fragrant bosom, a troubled heart calm. 
But morn brings no joy to the heart of the Fcargael \''' 

The contrast makes drearer his desert of woe ; 
The songs of the birds and the brightness around him 

No comfort or cheer on his soul can bestow. 

O where grow the flowers — in what valley supernal — 

Far hidden away, unrevealed, unexplored — 
A garden can make in the soul's desolation. 

And veil with its bloom a lost image adored ? 
The wise fairy doctors have failed to relieve him. 

The waters of Dooaji-' are vain to restore; 
And lost to the bright human life that surrounds him, 

He wanders as one on a ghost-haunted shore. 

Extinct the swift spark that responded to pleasure. 
His youthhood departed while yet it is young; 

Unnoticed the love and concern of his clansmen, 
The sonss of his bards are unheard or unsunq;. 



THE CEANN S VIGIL. 



6l 



The red speckled trout in the streams leap 
unheeded, 
The dolphin, wave-stranded, moans long 
on the shore, ''* 
The salmon, unspeared, throng the pools of 
Owen-Carrow, 
The red deer, unhunted, grow bold on 
Mcenmore. 





62 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

For Boylagh's young Ceann, so sick in his spirit, 
Can think of and see but the phantoms that flit, 

And all the wide world to one spot is contracted. 
He knows but the lone fairy rath of Belcruit. 

One faint gleam of hope through the gloom shines before him: 

The midsummer eve to his soul may bring cheer, 
For earth-born maidens, in fairyland captive, 

That night with the pageant on earth may appear. 
And this is the night. As the fairy court issues 

He watches each face with a hope that is prayer ; 
The pageantry passes, with chariots and horsemen, 

But no loved Finoula — Finoula — is there. 

"O curst is my lot," from the depths of his anguish, 

He cried as he tottered like imbecile age, 
" Did mortal e'er meet with such burden of sorrow, 

111 fortune such war on a human heart wage I 
I've called on the angels that dwell in the heavens. 

And spirits of magic, if such there may be ; 
Yea, called upon all things of earth, air and heaven. 

To come to my aid, lost Finoula to free. 



THE CEANN'S vigil. 63 

" Inutile my cries, and a spirit of evil 

Seems mocking my woe as it answers me back : 
' You never shall see her — she's bride of Finvarra — 

Your search is in vain for the knowledge you lack.' 
A monster of guilt seems to lurk in each shadow, 

The sin of that wicked spell withers my soul ; 
Thrice cursed must I be in the here and hereafter 

If she is not freed from the fairy control. 

" For lost unto me, she is lost, too, to heaven, 

And I had a part in her terrible fate ; 
When misery has ended my earthly existence 

What plea can I give at the heavenly gate ? " 
A mist crossed his eyes like a breath from oblivion. 

And, trembling in frame with the force of the tide 
Of anguish o'erwhelming, he leant to a yew tree 

To seek for support, but fell prone by its side. 




^^ 




THE HOLY WELL OE DOOAN. (See page 6o.) 



64 




IV. 



"T^e Sibyl's St-epy, 




66 




A 



S senseless and prone lay the chief, a gaunt figure 
Emerged from the shade of a hawthorn bush, 




An ointment she touched to his breast and his temples 
His senses returned with a swift tingling rush. 

The vapor that shrouded his vision departed, 

" Art thou," he exclaimed in a tremulous voice, 

" A mystic Danaan — a miracle worker — 

O tell to my heart should it weep or rejoice!" 



68 



THE ]K)RR(^WED BRIDE. 




MPETUOUS your Milesian race," 
The CaillcacJi Bera'^ said, "and bold, 

But you must curb your fiery haste 
Until my story first is told. 

I am the last of all my race, 

Who here, long gone, held peaceful sway, 
Ere yet across Iberia's plains 

Your Celtic sires had found their way. 

They were a sacerdotal tribe 
Who dwelt in far Iranian vales. 

And in the springs of nature found 
The power that over all prevails. 

Their faith was high ; they worshipped love, 
That gives to all things life and joy ; 

Their rites but symboUed nature's laws, 
And for the pure held no alloy. 

And to their reverent purpose true, 

They studied nature, shunned all wars; 

For knowledge high above they sought. 
And worshipped sun and moon and stars. 



THE sibyl's story. 69 

The earth to them was mother earth, 

And she with fruitful bosoms bare, 
Invited them, with srnihng face. 

The honey of her heart to share. 

And she was sacred in their sight ; 

To every hill and stream and grove 
A virgin spirit did they give 

To guard her with a jealous love. 

And thus their motiier, as men ought 
They made a deeply reverenced shrine, 

While all the glittering spheres above 
They peopled with a life divine, 

Which sends the warmth that vivifies 

And scatters flowers along the plain, 
Which gives the myriad lights of night. 

And sends the soft, refreshing rain. 

The whirlwind had its spirit strong, 

A spirit ruled the restless sea ; 
Creation was one temple vast 

At which they worshipped faithfully. 



70 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Fair peace and wisdom, hand in hand 
Must go, and they for wisdom sought ; 

The rage that burns to conquer lands 
Destroys the spirit's nobler thought. 

And thus a fair and happy life 

They led in calm and fruitful peace ; 

And thanked great Budh with all their hearts 
For each sweet season's rich increase. 

But evil works and never sleeps ; 

Disputes in sacred things arose ; 
The rebel force took up the sword, 

Which cares not what it overthrows. 

Their creed forbade all war and strife, 
For life doth not to man belong ; 

But on the rebels forced their way 

With thirsty spears in warlike throng. 

My race was swept from blest Iran, 

And horror marked their fleeing path ; 

For of all crimes religious wars 

Unchain mankind's most savage wrath. 



THE SIBYL S STORY. 

Knit closer by a luckless fate, 

In many lands they wandered far; 

J)ut kept their rites, the Bana''^ read, 
And followed still their guiding star. 



71 




And Avhen they reached the Tyrean shore 
They sailed before a favoring breeze 

Out to tlie open seas, beyond 
The pillar towers of Hercules.-^" 

And as the sight of land they lost 

The Dnrga^"^ to their priests appeared, 

And bade them fear not but sail on, 

Howe'cr the winds their courses veered. 



72 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Northwest they came and on a morn, 
Whose Hght bcflushed a ridge of foam 

That broke upon a range of shore, 

They landed here and made their home. 




And from the chffs they thanked their gods 
Amid the whirling sea birds' whir; 

They built their homes in \irgin groves 
Of sacred oak and fraijrant fir. 



THE sibyl's STORV. 73 

No living thing to death they doomed ; 

Their mother's breast to stain with blood 
Were crime against great nature's self, 

For all of life belongs to Budh. 

And slaughter strengthens and foments 

Man's lower instincts — brutifies 
The human heart — infects the blood, 

And gives offense to gentle eyes. 

And they who grossly feed on flesh 

Must have a dull and clouded mind, 
That cannot rise to range of thought 

Which makes the spirit pure-inclined. 

So gentler still became their creed. 

Which taught the beautiful alone ; 
And trained and fed the spirits' strength 

Until to fair perfection grown. 

And every beast, when bruised or sick, 
A healing friend the Boreade^- found, 

And all the birds, with chirp of joy, 
Would 



74 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




AT HIS VOICE FLY CIRCLING ROUND. 



THE sibyl's story. 75 

For this the central thought they held : 

The coarse and cruel live again 
On earth, however oft reborn, 

Until refined by thought and pain. 

Who drew the blood of man or beast 
Was shunned, nor could ennobled be,-^^ 

For while, as fjiants tall and strouij, 
Their hearts were gentle in degree. 

Their youths could race to mountain heights 

Or jump the deep ravine with ease. 
Or swimming fast their hands could clasp 

The fish that sported in the seas. 

And thus in peaceful life they spread 

Throughout this land's ten thousand vales ; 

In mines of thought for wisdom delved, 
And sang their songs and told their tales. 

Religion, magic, healing, song, 

And forces that your Christians dread, 

In nature's temple did they find. 
For thither all their searchinss led. 



76 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And thus for nigh three hundred years 
They ruled within those foamy seas ; 




Sustained by milk and grain and fruits, 
And hone}- of the great wild bees. 



THE sibyl's story. "Jf 

And living thus in frugal ways, 

Suppressing every gross desire, 
They could on wings of subject will, 

To higher spirit powers aspire. 

For man doth mighty gifts possess. 

If he but cultivates the will 
To feed and tend the forces pure. 

And silence those that lead to ill. 

And knowledge deep of nature's laws 

Can work what men call miracles ; 
And 'til that knowledge comes, no man 

His destiny on earth fulfils. 

But knowledge often leads to pride ; 

My race grew vain because so great ; 
Your people came — pride's punishment — 

And brought them to a hapless state. 

The wise man takes an humble walk, 

The vain one as a god would ride ; 
But gods are jealous and love not 

That men by selves be deified. 



78 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



And, too, our priests had grown corrupt 
And sought for gain at many springs; 

They used the Rites to bring them wealth, 
And put a price on sacred things. 

Our common people had no power, 
To change the Boreades' selfish ways. 

Although they felt the gods would send 
A bitter curse in nearb}' days. 

So when, one cloudless summer morn, 




They saw strange boats approach their shore, 
They knew and felt those tall white sails 
Within their folds the Red Wind^^ bore. 



THE SIBYL S STORY. 79 

And onward came the stranger ships 
And landed safe their warrior men — 

Fierce men of blood and war were they, 
Your Celtic sires from Breo-cean.^- 

Ah, men and races move like tides 

That flow, recede and disappear ; 
When one falls prostrate on the shore 

The next leaps on with boastful cheer. 

Your people meant, as conquerors do, 

Our very remnant to destroy ; 
But we had i,nfts to fascinate 

And thrill our masters' hearts with joy. 

The lore we brought from far Iran, 

And all the lands we wandered through, 

Our masters pleased; we met our needs 
By mystic art's bright retinue. 

For nature ever meets man's \\ants 

If he will seek the proper springs; 
Deprived of power in outward form. 

We found our strength in inward things. 



80 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

The cloud that marks a child's foredoom, 
]5ut makes the parent's heart more fond ; 

Our destiny for pity called. 

And mother nature did respond. 

For all the forms that nature takes 
Have voices if men only hear ; 

And all the beatings of her heart 
Are audible to spirit ear. 

We deeper searched her hidden laws 
That back of all the outward reign ; 

When weak the arm stern need inspires 
A keener spurring of the brain. 

And humbled sore, we worshipped well 
At all her signs made manifest ; 

And she in pitying love's embrace 

Close pres.sed us to her mother breast. 

She whispered secrets in our ears ; 

The mysteries of her inmost heart, 
That gave us music, prophesy 

And excellence in magic art. 



THE SIBYL S STORY. 

She gave us great and precious gifts, 

Beyond your Christian priesthood's ken ; 

The power that brings forth miracles, 
And reads the secret thoughts of men. 

Disease must vanish at our touch ; 

111 luck must flee our ashen wand ; 
Our glance can force the wind to pause, 

Or stay the murderer's lifted hand. 

The gift of music that we owned 

Could blight to death — to life could thril 

For ours the strains that still are heard 
By moonlight on each fairy hill. 



81 




THE thunder's ROAR, 



82 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




THE ocean's voice 

We could interpret, and could tell 
The message that the winds might bear 
In zephyr sigh or tempest swell. 

We heard the Sun-God tell the earth 
The tale unknown to common ears ; 

The cause and mystery of her birth, 
And story of her infant years. 

We harked to star discuss with star 
The inward meaning of all life. 

And purposes that are fulfilled 

By ever constant change and strife. 



THE sibyl's story. 

And so your people came to love, 
Perhaps to fear, the gifts we owned ; 

They let us live, unharmed, remote, 
Where we our fallen fate bemoaned. 

And when the hate that comes with war 
Had passed, your Celtic Druids •^'' sought 



83 




Our Boreades' homes, in mountain vales, 
To learn their subtler arts of thought. 



84 



THE BORRSWED BRIDE. 



And when our last Danaan chief 
(But Httle power or rank had he) 

Felt death approach, he spoke his wish 
Beside a dwarfed and broken tree 




Amid this wreck of storm," he spoke, 
'• 'Tis fit that I my wish should say; 



THE SIBYL'S STORY. 85 

This leafless, blasted, broken oak, 
But typifies the Tuatha's decay. 

" We had the lore of blest Iran ; 

The faith of man's fresh, early morn ; 
We owned the magi's secret gifts 

And knew all arts that could adorn. 

" And these the Celtic Druids took 

And so enriched their barren rites ; 
But as they spread them to the world, 

That deed the debt to us acquites. 

" And it is but the wa)' of men, 

Of victor over vanquished race. 
To take what gifts the conquered own 

And then their name and fame efface. 

" But we have left upon this soil 

Such noble work of brain and hand. 
To tell the world that we were here, 

As shall forever calmly stand. 

" The towers that speak a lofty faith 
And symbolize Creative puvver,-^° 



86 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




These are our tombs — our monuments- 
Memorials to the latest hour. 

" Aloft, indifferent to all change, 
'Til future men shall cease to see 

Their import, and, through ignorance, 
Regard them as a mystery. 

" No malice for our conquerors hold ; 
They, too, in time shall fail and fade ; 



THE sibyl's story. 87 

We know our fate ; they know not theirs ; 
They let us live ; we gave them aid. 

" And so shall you, when I am gone, 

Your magic aid as freely give ; 
For man or race, however strong, 

But live to die and die to live." 

As sacred as the Bana's words 

Were these, the last our prophet spoke, 

When, eyes upturning unto Baal, 
He fell beside the blasted oak. 

And we have followed his command, 

As sacredly as it was said ; 
We've worked the charms that brought good luck 

To family board and marriage bed. 

We kept your children straight of limb. 
Which makes your men a warrior race ; 

We winnowed pure the soft sweet air 

That gives your maidens health and grace.-^'' 

The quivering nostrils of your horse ^"^ 
We breathed into with living flame, 



88 



THE I'.ORROWED URIDE. 

That gives them spirit, strength and speed, 
No journey, toil or time can tame. 




We gave the swiftness to your hounds 
That makes them fleeter than the gale ; 

We give you prophesy of death — 
The sorrowinc: banshic's warninij wail. 



One thing alone, Milesian chief. 

Is far beyond our magic art ; 
We can brew potions to cause love, 

Hut cannot heal the love-sick heart. 



THE sibyl's story. 89 

" O daughter of the mystic rites, 

Is there no charm — no magic — naught — 

To break the power of fairy spell, 

And cure this heart, so sore distraught ? 

" I would not that the yearning pain 

Of love that burns within my breast 
Were quenched, for it is sweet and dear — 

Her presence only could give rest. 

" For her my very soul calls out 

With all the strength a soul can know ; 

O pity me, thou wizard wise. 
And end this agony of woe." 

For many tides I've known your woe, 

And longed that I my pity prove. 
For though now but a withered hag 

Once well I knew the power of love. 

And I have suffered as you do 

By fairy power, though Sibyl I, 
For fullest gifts of spirit art 

Are held from mortals till they die. 



90 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 
In pity came I from my home 




Within the lonely mountain dell ; 
My tale may tell your heart to hope, 
Although I cannot break the spell. 

'Tis many years, and I was young, 
All fresh of heart and free of will, 



THE sibyl's story. 

'Till on Rea Shamain's night I danced 
To fairy music on the hill. 

It was the music of my race, 

But they, for gifts I need not tell, 

Resigned it to the fairy powers, 

And fell themselves beneath its spell. 

And as I danced my senses swam, 
I felt a stealing of the breath ; 



91 




I sank upon the ground as if 

Touched by the sudden hand of death. 



92 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

But soon a wondrous vision came, 

And I in fairy palace stood ; 
In front a dreamy, wine-hued sea, 

And then a perfume-breathing wood. 

It was not as on earth I knew 

The sweep and shade of landscape fair ; 

There seemed no sun, no stars, no moon. 
Yet there was Hght — veiled light was there. 

And by my side a princely form, 
A man of proud and stately mien, 

Who said, " For you I sent to earth, 

And you henceforth shall be my queen. 

*' I was a mortal of your race, 
But favored by the gods was I ; 

They took me, mortal, from the earth, 
And gave me immortality. 

" For I am Don, - the priest and chief, 
Who sank into the yielding sea. 

Long ages gone, to rule this realm 
Of fairy mirth and revelry. 



THE SIBYL'S STORY. 

" It is a fair, untroubled realm, 

Where pleasure waits on my command ; 
And gay shall be the festal scene 

When you and I clasp heart and hand." 

Up flashing from the amber sea 



93 




A I5AND OF MAIDENS SUDDEN ROSE. 



94 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

"These are the virgin maids," he said, 
"Who shall keep watch o'er your repose. 

" You are the last of that fair tribe, 
To which on earth I did belong; 

'Tis fitting you should be my bride, 

And here with me your youth prolong. 

" Full many be the maidens bright 

My knights from earth have borne away, 

But none of them have I allowed 

To rule my heart with queenly sway. 

" I kept it for some maiden fair 

Of my own race — and you are here. 

The first who has my kingdom blest. 
And you are very sweet and dear. " 

He bent his head and on my cheek 
He pressed his lips of leaping flame 

That filled me with a burning fire 

And wreathed my face in rosy shame. 

And then a burst of elfin song 

And laughter issued from the woods ; 



THE sibyl's story. 



95 




And instantly a mighty throng 
Of fairy knights before us stood. 

" Now give the music,'' Don spoke high, 
".To which the earthly maidens dance, 

When we, to gain their presence here. 
Impose the breath-extracting trance." 

For in Don's kingdom — such the law — 
The knight who works a valiant deed, 

Must have a maiden, fresh from earth. 
To take with him the revel's lead. 



96 



THE HORROWED BRIDE. 

And he that night is revel-king, 
An earthly princess by his side- 

The greatest honor in his land, 
The highest flow of fairy pride. 




And now in great white hall we stood — 
Full many captive maids were there. 

And fairy knight and earthly maid. 

Danced light as if they stepped on air. 



THE SIBYL S STORY. 



97 



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98 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

The scene forbade my lips to tell 

My heart was still on earth, and owned 

By one — a fair and gentle youth 

Who then, perchance, my fate bemoaned. 

How in a tuneful erove we met 




One sweet May morn when all was fair ; 
He was an Orphidghe,^° diXid loved 
To listen to the songr birds there. 



THE SIBYL'S STORY. 99 

His presence filled me with such joy 

That, though of the Milesian blood, 
And I of the Danaan race, 

Between our hearts no barrier stood. 

Within his harpchords music slept. 

And when to love's warm touch it woke, 

A throbbing sea of rapturous song 
In waves of purest passion broke. 

They caught me in their circling flow, 

And bore me onward on their tide ; 
I drifted on a sea of bliss 

With my sweet lover, side by side. 

His lightest touch flashed to my heart ; 

His soft voice bore my soul along; 
He was for bardic uses born — 

Was born for love and tuned for song ! 

And there our hearts, enclasped, went out 

And basked within the golden glow 
That perfume-filled the air above, 

And bathed in joy the vales below. 



100 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

We sought each green, bird-haunted grove, 
And flowery meadow, fair and sweet, 

Whose laughing brooklets sang of love, 
As if our happy hearts to greet. 

And oh, his music was so sweet 
It seemed with very life to thrill, 

The grey old rocks, and gayer danced 
The waters of each mountain rill. 

It lulled the rustling of the woods, 
And hushed the song birds' melody ; 

It held the vagrant winds to list, 

And soothed the sobbing of the sea. 

The quivering tree-tops waved with joy, 
The buds burst open at its voice, 

And every flower unloosed its robes, 
So that its bare heart could rejoice ! 

One eventide across a brook 

Whose waters sparkled pure and clear. 

We pledged our vows, and, witnessing, 
Our mother earth was there to hear. 



THE sibyl's story. 



lOI 




Within her book of perfect laws 
She wrote them down immutable : 

For she her children hold and bind 
That all their vows they shall fulfil. 

I lived in love's enchanted land, 
In fairest dreams unknown before ; 
\ The plainest thing showed beauty's touch, 
And there was naught but to adore. 

And so, as in entrancing dream, 

The summer's fair, sweet days advanced, 

Until that sad, unhappy eve, 
I to the fairy music danced. 

It was my happiness of heart, 

My lightsome spirit's joyous flow, 

Tl)at caused my thoughtless feet to dance — 
The higher bliss the nearer woe. 

And then, borne off to fairy land, 

I heard his heart call to my heart; 
I felt the yearning force of love 

That draws together those apart. 



102 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

But I was powerless to respond 
And hasten to his pleading call ; 

That fairy dance upon the hill 

Had placed me in a helpless thrall. 




WITHIN 

don's kingdom, 



still unwon, 
I reigned one long, unhappy year ; 
And ever in the gayest scenes 

The eye would weep the saltest tear. 



THE SIBYLS STORY. 103 

When mirth rose highest, then my heart, 
Thus exiled from its mate, would bleed ; 

Alas ! for those who far from home 
And kin the stranger's life must lead. 

Full well I knew that Don, the king 

Of all the fairy realms around, 
Loved me — yea, with consuming love, 

Beyond all measure and all bound. 

And this devotion did I use 

To find my way to earth again ; 
'Twas wrong, perhaps, but right or wrong 

Can have no voice in love's sweet pain. 

One eve we sat within a bower 

Amid a scene surpassing fair, 
His arms were gently round me clasped. 

His lips were resting on my hair. 

And he was pleading, soft and low. 

But with intensity of fire, 
That I should be his loving queen 

Before the twelvemonth should expire. 



I04 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

I heard the beating of his heart, 
I felt love's incense from it breathe, 

I called him — yes — my love, my king — 
And crowned him with a floral wreath. 

"Ten thousand realms for this," he cried, 
" Would I bestow did I possess." 

" I only ask one hour on earth," 

I said ; and slow he answered " Yes." 

A quiver finely broke his voice, 
A shadow faintly crossed his face, 

As when, unconscious, doubt will come 
And leave in look and speech its trace. 

O, with an instinct keen of love 

And hope I watched his word and look. 

And from that shadow of a doubt 
Sweet promise of release I took. 

Strong coils and bands seemed round my head. 
As if my bursting brain to bind, 

Such wild, anticipated joy 

Possessed my being, heart and mind. 



THE SIBYL S STORY. 

A trusty knight was sent with me, 
To row my boat and guard me well ; 



105 




We crossed the sea — I pointed where — 
Then slept ; and woke within a dell. 



And looking round I saw with joy 
It was the spot, remembered long, 

Where first I met my minstrel love, 
And listened to his wild, sweet song. 



I06 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

The first faint flush of dawn came down 
The lovely vale in opal hue, 




The lark's first carol hailed the morn, 
And answering sang a voice I knew. 

It sang so sweet, but oh, so sad, 

" Is there no hope, no love for me ? " 

My spirit swelled to giant strength 
And wildly struggled to be free. 

No deer e'er panted for the brook, 
No hound e'er bounded to the chase, 

As eager as I swept along 

And fell into my love's embrace. 



THE sibyl's story. IO/ 

He held me with a lover's strength, 

He pressed me with a lover's fire ; 
He kissed me with that hungry love 

That cannot satisfy desire. 

The fairy knight stood near beside ; 

The Crystal Flask^' was in his hand, 
Which, when he broke, would raise a sea 

To bear me back to fairy land. 

Fast, fast I felt my spirit sink, 

I heard the sound of waters near. 
And then a voice "your hour is up, 

And you from earth must disappear." 

My lover saw my sore distress, 

He saw approach the fairy knight ; 
One arm around my waist was twined. 

The other free for gallant fight. 

With sudden sweep he seized the flask 
And bade Don's knight in speed depart; 

Then drank the water — and its power 
Was conquered by his love-true heart ! 



io8 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



And now one circle did we know 

Of wedded joy and perfect bliss, 
One ceaseless rapture of the heart, 




ONE LONG, LIFE-BLENDING, CONSTANT KISS. 



THE sibyl's story. 



109 



And then the withering fairy curse, 
Deprived of power to injure me, 

Pressed sore upon my wedded love — 
His urn Ues deep by yonder tree. 

My star was set — my god was dead — 




And I was lonely and so sad ; 
The few who strayed into the woods 
And saw me, said that I was mad. 



no THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Alas ! each light must have its shade, 
And every sweet its bitter sour ; 

And I in life-long shadow sank 
In that all dark and desolate hour. 



The green banks drank my tears of woe, 
The groves were saddeAed by my wail, 

The morn was dark, the noon was night. 
And grief rode on the midnight gale. 

The echoes of his harp still lived 




And taught the thrushes as before, 
But ah, the notes to me were sad 
As sobs of wave on lonely shore. 



THE sibyl's story. Ill 

For saddest music soul can hear 

Is lost love's memory-held refrain, 
That sweeps the dreary, ravished heart 

Like echo of that heart's own pain. 

Within the woods' deep, sacred shades, 
I passed the day in reverent thought; 

For secrets true of life and death 

With tireless heart and brain I sought. 

The bird that sang from frozen bough 

To unborn spring its greeting strain, 
There taught me by its simple song 

The dead should wake and live again. 

The spring herself told by her smiles 

That death was but a passing sleep ; 
Yea, it was written on the skies 

In day's and night's successive sweep. 

And often as I fell beneath 

The soothing sorcery of the sea, 
The waves as spirit voices seemed 

Of those who were and those to be. 



112 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And where I wandered, night or day, 
In twilight gloom or sunny morn, 

My lover's spirit seemed to me 

To guide my footsteps, lone and lorn. 

If I but listened, long and deep, 

Unto the linnet's tender lay, 
It would become my lover's voice 

That sang to me to come away. 

If in the twilight sweetness hushed 

Of peaceful vale I sat to rest. 
Fair night, hair strewn with stars, stooped down 

And whispered comfort to my breast. 

When on the hills in solemn night, 

I walked abroad and watched with awe 

The Sun God's priests their rites perform, 
And tried to learn creation's law, 

I oft beheld a stranger star 

That I had never seen before. 
Beam on me with a tender light 

As if my presence to implore. 



THE SIBYLS STORY. 



113 



My spirit would be upward drawn, 
So strong was its attracting smile ; 




I've sat and watched it 'til the dawn, 
And felt my heart at rest the while. 



I know that he awaits me now 
Within some fair and spirit place ; 

He was too good to be reborn 

To woes that load the human race. 



114 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



And at the solemn winter feast, 

However wild the winds might blow, 
I've climbed the sacred oak and cut 




With hook of s^old, the mistletoe. 



THE sibyl's story. II5 

In memory of my lover gone, 

With votive wreath I bound my brow; 

I pledged myself to him anew 
And reaffirmed our wedlock vow. 

My tale is told except a word 

To say my hundredth year is nigh, 
And I my mystic lore and power 

Would give to you before I die.^^* 

Nay, do not start ; your eager heart 

But tells how deeply do you love, 
For lovers grasp at faintest hope 

That could to them an ally prove. 

Alas ! the maiden of your love 

I cannot to your bosom yield; 
But I can give a charm by which 

She to your soul shall be revealed. 

By it you can in spirit fly 

To fairy palace where she dwells, 
And hear the secret, plaintive sigh 

With which her bosom ever swells. 



Il6 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Surrounded b\- a mirthful court 

Of knights and ladies wondrous fair. 

She tinds no pleasure in their spmt, 
l^ut li\es a pensive captive there. 

You must not touch her hand or lip. 

You must not seek to gain her e\-e ; 
l^ut }ou can gaze upon her form. 

And she can feel that you are nigh. 

If this be pleasure to your soul, 

M\- m\stic lore the power can give." 

" «."> wizard, also give me power 
To bring her. back to earth to li\e. 

" You can have all that you desire ; 

I'll build >ou castles tall and grand; 
My ver\- life — m\- soul — my all — 

Shall humbl\- be at your command." 

** Na\-, do not talk to me of wealth — 
The craving of a witless one — 

Its weight is deadl)-, and the wise 
Its needless burden well ma\- shun. 



THE sibyl's story. 



117 



But seat you here beneath this tree, 
The sacred hawthorn clothed in bloom, 

And place your hand in mine, for I 
Would read Caomai's^^ scroll of doom. 








The stars are inner-circled priests 

That keep the mysteries of the nij^ht, 

And guide the world while Budh-na-Baal 
Withdraws his godhead's central light. 



Il8 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

They know why we are here on earth, 
They see the purpose we fulfil ; 

And if we seek with reverent minds 

To read their scripts the\''ll grant us skill. 

You tread the radiant hills of morn, 
I totter down life's evening vale ; 

In you the human passions burn, 
In me the spirit lights prev^ail. 

And, freed from riot of the blood, 
I can the clearer vision see ; 

In mj-stic calm of twilight life 
We live much nearer deity. 

Above ni}' head cease not to hold 

This wand of mingled thorn and yew, 

Else I must suffer, as I see, 

The tortures that you must go through." 

The wand she handed to the chief; 

With care unrolled her speaking stone ;^^ 
Then closed her e\-es, and thus began 

Her chant in rapid monotone : 



THE SIBYL'S STORY. 



119 




" Crystal Star, the queen of aether, 

Honeybell, the queen of earth. 
Amber Eyes, the queen of water, 

All attended at your birth. 
You were born of night of Shamain, 

Pregnant night of mystic spells, 
And a spirit — sleep you, wake you — 

Ever in your circle dwells. 



Other spirits seek to gain you — 
Wicked ones that wish you ill, 

And at times you stand in danger- 
Victim of their evil will. 

But the spirit that's assigned you. 
Ever constant shall attend ; 

She will battle to defend you 
And be faithful to the end. 



Much you'll have to do with spirits ; 

You were born on spirits' night ; 
But from out each cloud that darkens. 

You will rise to brighter light. 



I20 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




Keep your courage, fear ik^ evil. 

Outer forces cannot kill, 
But the spirit in your bosom 
Keep from all that secmeth ill. 

Keep it pure and keep it holy. 

Keep it ever true to love ; 
Keep it staunch and keep it stead- 
fast, 

Constant as the stars above. 
Never fear and never falter ; 

Round your head I see a light, 
And a host of spirits battle. 

With the \-ictory for the right. 

Spirits swa)- )Ou — I ha\'e told }-ou — 

And the soul that in }-ou dwells 
Can vibrate from highest godlands 

To the ocean's deepest cells. 
Narrow souls of common mortals 

Know not what \-ou see and know; 
Cannot feel }our joy ecstatic 

Or )-our tleep and wordless woe. 



THE SIliVL's STORY. 



121 



Yours a soul of sweeping compass, 

Through all space to range abroad, 
Destined, if you keep it holy, 

After death to be a god. 
This, its test in you, is final 

In the good and evil war — 
Hush ! I see a growing darkness 

Sweep across your natal star. 

Dim it grows, and dim and dimmer, 
Clouds of spirits fiercely fight. 




And a hideous monster's shadow 
Wholly blots it out from sight. 



122 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

For a time your path is darkened, 
And your soul is sunk in gloom ; 

Hard the evil spirits press you — 

Press you — press you — to your doom. 

Son of man ! it is not given 

That I further in may see, 
For our powers must have their limits 

As all things that mortal be. 

Hush those groanings — cease those questions 
Do not cross me in my trance — 

Now I see the shadows lighten, 
And the light again advance. 

Tranquil now is all the vision. 

And your star shines clear and fair ; 
See ! a radiant spirit, happy. 

Floats toward you through the air, 
'Tis the spirit of your mother. 

Guiding spirit of her son ; 
Clear is all the way before you, 

And your sorrows shall be done. 



THE sibyl's story. 



123 




Ask me not how this shall happen ; 

Dark my sight ; my lips are dumb. 
Only this : you shall be happy 

In the years that are to come ; 
And your race shall have good fortune, 

Down through ages long and far ; 



124 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

This is what I see before you — 
This the saying of your star." 

The sibyl woke, and from her bosom 
Forth a circUng wreath she drew. 

" Look through this," she said, "and tell me 
What appeareth to your view." 

He took the wreath, of herbs enwovcn. 

Placed it to his feager e\'es : 
" I behold," he said, " O i)riestess. 

Rapid changing visions rise. 

Now I see a glittering palace 
On a wide and verdant plain, 

Fairer in its lofty turrets 
Than the palace of Etain/" 

Lakes where swans go slowly sailing, 
Gardens bending with rich blooms ; 

Birds that light the shadowy landscape 
With the splendor of their plumes. 

Now I hear the fairy music, 

I behold the fairy bands, 
And I see a troop of horsemen 

Gallop up o'er golden sands. 



THE sibyl's story. 



125 



Knights with spears and masks on faces, 
Horses harnessed rich and fine, 

Prancing, dashing as in tourney, 
And in far-extendin^^ line. 



'u^^;^ 






"m: 




Now before a bower they rein up 
And salute a maiden fair — 

'Tis Finoula — lost Finoula — 

God ! O hear my misery's prayer 



126 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Break the spell, O potent priestess ! 

You can do it, for the lore 
That can show me this can do it — 

Break it ! break it ! I implore ! " 

" Son of man ! I cannot — cannot — 
Would I mock you in your woe ? 

Could I do it, I had done it 
Many, many moons ago ! 

Christ, perhaps, your God of Christians, 
May, in time, your woe efface ; 

I know not your new religion — 
I am loyal to my race ! 

Now a larger wreath I give you, 
Made of potent herb and flower; 

Let no other eyes behold it, 
Or for you is lost its power. 

Name you not your God of Patrick, 
Of the cross perform no sign, 

Say no Latin prayer or psalter. 
For your Budha is not mine. 



THE sibyl's story. 12/ 

Your one God is cold and distant, 

Ours is near and warm of breath, 
And your symbol of salvation 

Is with us the sign of death/^ 

Take this wreath within your chamber, 
And when night moves through the air, 

From its secret place of hiding 
Take it forth with reverent care. 

Pluck a leaf each night and burn it ; 

In the smoke that shall arise 
Forth your spirit shall be wafted, 

While your body seeming dies. 

Thus conveyed to fairy palace, 

Where the fair Finoula pines, 
You shall see her and be near her 

'Til the star of morning shines. 

But you must not seek her rescue, 
And your voice she must not hear ; 

Though invisible your presence, 
She will know that you are near. 



128 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

You shall feel a flame responsive, 
If your love hold regnant sway; 

True love rules like queenly Shamain 
Whom the flowing tides obe3^ 



Take this book of inner knowledge, 
Writ within a far-off vale, 







By a blest Iranian prophet 

Whose deep secrets still prevail." . 

Into the woods' enshrouding shade 
With feeble steps she turned away; 

The chieftain sat with spell- bound limbs, 
Nor had he voice to bid her stay. 



THE SIBYL S STORY. 

Within his hand he held the wreath 
And closely pressed it to his breast 

" I stake the safety of my soul, 

If this but gives my torn heart rest. 

So said, he staggered to his feet, 

And, with the calm resolve of one 
Who perils all on one last chance, 
He soufjht his wave-encircled dun. 



129 









I30 



V. 



¥l^e ^eiee and Bell, 




HISPERED gossip in the castle 
Led to rumors in the clan, 
And the chief's own manner told them 
He was under evil ban. 

Through the day he walked the mountains, 

Or he wandered by the sea. 
And to things that had no substance 

He would talk unceasingly. 

While the night was still at distance, 

He would seek his turret grey, 
There to battle with impatience 
At the setting sun's delay. 

He avoided priestly counsel, 
For the Mass he had no care — 

Never named the Holy Presence, 
Nor his forehead cross'd in prayer. 



134 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

When his clansmen held the tailten ^* 
On the Meen-a -Gobbait^'' plain, 

He was absent, though his presence 
Should his chieftain's right maintain. 

Soon rebellion followed rumor, 
And the Olavs sat in state,-*^ 

To determine by their wisdom 
The young Dynast's mystic fate: 

To consider well the question, 
Now so loudly spread abroad. 

Whether Boylagh's chief was stricken 
By the angry hand of God. 

For it was a law in Erin, 

Sacred held and well defined. 

That a ruler must be perfect, 
Both in body and in mind. 

If a flaw appeared in either, 

Then his right to rule was past. 

For it showed that God, the Perfect, 
Had him from His favor cast. 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 



135 



Duly did the Olavs counsel, 

And adjudged the chief unfit 
For the duties of a ruler, 




AND THE VERDICT SO WAS WRIT. 



136 thp: borrowed bride. 

But a strange voice broke the silence — 
Whence it came they could not see ; 

" Be not hasty in your judgment- 
God reverses man's decree." 

And the listeners crossed their bosoms, 
Trembling with a holy fear ; 

'Til spoke up the great chief Olav, 
" 'Tis the voice of God we hear." 

Unpronounced remained the sentence, 
And in awe they left the place, 

Saying " great is God the Father, 
And thrice wonderful His grace." 

When the clansmen heard the marvel, 
Heard the miracle thus spoke. 

All their grumbling into murmurs 
Of deep reverent wonder broke. 

And they said, " 'tis God rebukes us, 
(Be His name forever blest), 

For our hasty, wrong rebellion. 
When soft sympathy is best. 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 

" 'Tis to teach some sacred lesson 

That our God our chief makes strange ; 

Let us wait for what will happen 
And be patient 'til the change." 



^37 




WHERE GARTAN LOUGH LIES 
CALM AND STILL, 



Within the mountain's shade, 
A holy priest — young Columb^' blest- 
His home and shrine had made. 



138 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 



And he could cure, by grace of God, 

All human ills and woes, 
And bring unto the troubled soul 

God's peace and sweet repose. 




So when he heard how Boylagh's chief 

Was in his soul distressed — 
Had heard no Mass in many months. 

Nor once had crossed his breast — 

He left his cell at early morn, 

And journeyed through the day. 

To lift the dark and withering spell 
That on the chieftain lay. 

'Twas late into the night when he, 
Foot sore and faint with toil, 

Knelt lowly down and prayed before 
The fortress of O'Boyle. 

"Where is your chief?" he asked of him 

Who sentinelled the wall. 
" My chief is in his chamber, saint, 

And grief is in the hall." 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 1 39 

" Then guide me to this chamber lone, 

That I may learn his ill " — 
"Good priest, we dare not break his rest — 

Such is our chieftain's will." 

" His will, I fear, Is not his own — 

Some demon holds him bound ; 
Without delay direct me where 

His chamber can be found." 

Upon his couch the chieftain lay, 

All pulseless as if dead ; 
The saint took out his holy book 

And long and long he read. 

No sign of life came to the frame, 

No breathing heaved his breast ; 
But still the saint prayed on and on 

With faith that would not rest. 

The pale grey face of morn appeared, 

And in its trembling light 
The saint beheld, above the couch, 

A strange and wondrous sight. 



I40 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

For saints, with heavenly vision, see 
Things dark to mortal eye ; 




Above the rigid form he saw 
A spirit hovering nigh ! 

It, fluttering, entered in the form, 
Which stirred to life reborn; 

It was the chieftain's soul come back 
From fairyland with morn ! 

The saint his cross of carven oak 
Placed in the chieftain's hand ; 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 141 

The sinner trembled at the touch, 
As shakes an aspen wand. 

Blest water from the holy well-" 

He sprinkled on his breast ; 
Around his neck he hung the beads 

Of amber, pure and blest. 

And all the household gathered soon, 

Within the chapel dim, 
To hear the Mass by Columbkille, 

And sing the Alius '^"^ hymn. 

" Your wreath of herbs — that evil thing — 

Go fetch it here to me, 
Upon the Altar stone to burn 

With all its sorcery." 

The saint commanded, and O'Boyle, 

Begged faintly as he rose — 
" O Columb, must my soul give up, 

The only joy it knows ? " 

In sympathy the saint replied — 
For Columb's heart was kind — 



142 THE BORROWED BRIDE, 

" In God alone the soul of man 
Its peace can ever find. 

" No good can come from evil works, 
Nor wicked spell make free ; 

Depend on Him who rules all spheres, 
And peace will come to thee." 

And as he burned the magic wreath 
Upon the Altar stone, 




A demon spirit, breathing fire, 
From out the black smoke shone. 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 

When all the smoke had cleared away, 
They looked with anxious care 

For ashes on the Altar stone, 
And lo ! no ash was there. 

Then Columb blessed the place around. 

From roof to donjon deep, 
And put a penance on the chief 

That he, perforce, must keep. 

At midnight to the chapel dim 

He must each night repair, 
To chant three times the Altus hymn. 

And pass an hour in prayer. 

And to Saint Patrick's holy isle,?'^ 

A pilgrimage to make, 
And to construct a sacred house 

Within Baai-Pharrag/r^ Lake. 

And he must kneel and cross his breast 

When chimed the chapel bell ; 
Such works as these would bring him peace. 

And save his soul from hell. 



143 



144 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

"And now, may peace be with you, son "- 
The saint passed out the door — 

" And I will name you in my prayers, 
By Gartan's peaceful shore." 

The chieftain's mein grew more composed, 
But searching eye could tell 

It was the calm of one who bade 
The realm of hope farewell. 

And there was on his brow betimes 
The stamp of inward pain, 

As one who struggles hard to hold 
His heart in tightest rein. 

And if a smile broke on his face. 
There was no rapture there ; 

'Twas but a glimmer that revealed 
The grimness of despair. 

And so the first day passed, and he 
Still failed his mind to know ; 

Or should he visit fairyland, 
Or to the chapel go ? 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 



H5 



Still stronger grew, at night's approach, 

The struggle in his breast ; 
With fierce conflicting thoughts he watched 

The sun sink in the west. 




The human heart in youth is 
strong, 
And wilful in its might; 
"I'll go," he said, "to fairy- 
land. 
And take farewell to-night. 



" It will not break my penance vow, 

'Tis but to say farewell ; 
And good must be the act that tries 

To break an evil spell." 



He rose ; approached the secret place 
Where he the wreath had kept; 

And then the burning scene that morn 
Swift o'er his memory swept. 



146 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

While love's sad tears, in silent flow, 
Bedimmed his weary eyes, 

A voice from out the gathering gloom 
He heard that spoke, " Arise ! 

" And I will take you to your love. 
Who pines for you e'en now; 

Bid her farewell, and then return 
And keep your penance vow." 

In cunning ways does evil work, 
And tempts with half a sin ; 

Yea — even then, in softest voice, 
To good it claimeth kin. 

The chief, as drowsed by slumber spell, 
Was sinking to the floor, 

When loudly rang the chapel bell 
And open swung the door. 

The cold air roused to quickened sense, 
And lo ! the vision fair ! 

It lit the chamber with its light, 
And music filled the air. 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 



147 




Around a cross of glowing light 
Five angel heads appeared ; 

So fair their little faces shone, 
No mortal could have feared. 



And, rising o'er the demon voice, 
The prayer bell rang out clear ; 

The mortal sank upon his knees 
And felt that Good was near. 



148 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Sweet words of prayer came to his lips, 
As streams from fountains flow ; 

And cooled and calmed his fevered heart, 
So parched with burning woe. 

And soft the sleep that came and wrapped 

Him in its soothing folds, 
The sleep of peace that, sent from heaven, 

Best balm of healing holds. 

'Twas midnight hour when he awoke; 

The chapel lights shone dim ; 
In penance prayer an hour he passed. 

And sang the Altus hymn. 

And in the morn, with calmer mind 
Than known for many a day, 

His penances he entered on 

With faith and zeal straightway. 

He to St. Patrick's holy isle 
Made bare-foot pilgrimage, 

And felt the sacred waters there 
His heart's hot pangs assuage. 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 

His Gobban Saer^^ he caused to build 

A blessed house of stone 
Within Baal-Parragh Lake, which as 

Kill- Tiivris ^^ since is known. 

With all his penances performed, 
He sought good Columb's cell, 



149 




For sorrow still was in his heart. 
Though he had struggled well. 

And kindly Coluinb took his hand, 
" My son, why so forlorn ? 

Trust God, your troubles shall be past 
Before next Christmas morn. 



ISO THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

"Your penance you have rightly done; 

I know your load is great ; 
But take the promise Christ has made — 

Have faith and pray and wait. 

" For faith supports the sinking heart, 
And prayer will win the fight ; 

However long or deep our woe, 
God's mercy comes aright, 

"A vision came to me last night 
Which caused my heart to sigh ; 

It bore me from my native land, 
Far from yon tender sky. 

" And on a rocky island small, 

Within a stormy sea, 
In exile I must pass my days, 

And there my death shall be. 

" O, in that dream sore grew my heart, 

With bitterness of woe ; 
Such homesick sorrow as I felt 

May sinner never know ! 



THE VOICE AND BELL. 

" These very storks ^s you see around- 

I feed them from my hand — 
I saw all faint from flying far, 



151 




STORM-BLOWN UPON THE STRAND. 

" For they, attracted by my grief, 
Had flown across the sea. 

In sympathy, like human things, 
To try and comfort me. 



" Yet if that dream came true, not I 
Would murmur or repine; 



152 THE BORROWED iJRIDE. 

" Into the hands of God our lives 
We must in faith resign. 

" Around your neck this holy cross, 

By Patrick's blessing blest, 
Wear, night and day — 'twill shield from harm, 

And help you in your quest. 

" I know the question you would ask 

And freely answer ' yes.' 
In Christian way your quest pursue 

And God thy work will bless." 




VI. 



T^e nansera, 




154 



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^. OUND the year's circle a twelvemonth has traveled ; 

The night's Halloweve, and the sJiie folk are out; 
Espying O'Boyle, they desist from their revels, 
And jeeringly hail him with laughter and shout — 
'. A jeer of contempt and a shout of derision, 

That, piercing like spears, send a pain to his heart; 
But standing aside, and refraining from mocking, 
A Lanan-shie^^ beckons the mortal apart. 



" I've pitied you long," she made speech, while compassion 

And kindness lit up her wee bit of a face, 
" I know that you truly love Princess Finoula, 

The queen of our realm, although not of our race. 



156 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Recalling the night when she came to our kingdom, 
To-morrow 'twill be a full year and a day, 

And then, if the spell is not broken by midnight, 
She dwells in our kingdom for ever and aye. 

" O faithful each night have you watched for her coming. 

And faithfulness everywhere wins its reward; 
To-morrow she comes — 'tis the test of our elf- spell — 

And you may regain her if well on your guard. 
When gaily our fairy prince sought yoin* assistance, 

You knew not the law that exists in our state — 
That we cannot charm without mortal approval. 

Nor mortal without fairy aid liberate. 

" Now I will assist you, for deeply I cherish 

Respect for such true love as yours has proved ; 
As woman, I know that Finoula, being mortal, 

Should be, in her rights, by a mortal beloved. 
And T am the maid who stands nearest her person. 

And oft I have told her what proof I have seen 
Of your love and your constancy, truth and devotion, 

As faithful each night you have watched by the green. 



THE RANSOM. 



157 




" This rod you shall take, and no mortal must see it 

Until it is used, or its potency's gone ; 
Behind yonder hazel bush, friendly to mortals, 

All patiently wait 'til the court cometh on. 
On canopied couch will they bear your Finoula; 

A sign I will give when the moment is right ; 
Three crosses in air o'er her head cut you quickly — 

Finoula is ransomed, and now, sir, good night." 



158 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

As life-giving sap in the spnng-time rettirneth 

To trees of the forest and flowers of the field, 
O'Boyle in his veins feels, with force of renewal, 

The flowing of springs that so long were congealed. 
It needs not a blast from the trumpet of Gabriel 

Resurrections to cause, for they come every day. 
When, crushed by some load that oppresses the senses, 

Relief lifts the burden and brightens the way. 

With mind ranging high in expectancy's region, 

Intensely, entirely absorbed in one thought, 
Nor hunger, nor sleep, nor fatigue of the body, 

The twenty-four hours intervening have brought; 
And now, as again the lone midnight approaches, 

The hazel bush grants him a station and screen, 
And soon tiny flashes, like lamps of the fireflies, 

With shimmer and sparkle illumine the green. 




KIPPING o'er the moonlit lea, 

See the elfin maids advance ; 
Fair each maid as maid may be, 
Tripping in the entrance dance; 



THE RANSOM. 



159 



While, aside, the master stands 
And speaks out his high commands. 




Swinging round and round the ring, 
Backward, forward, jig and fling ; 
Stately step and gallop gay 
Thus they launch the revelry — 
Dance, parade, and minstrelsy ! 
Tiny maids with tender eyes, 
Angle for a sweetheart's prize ; 
Elfin knights, with bows and smiles. 
Practice all the lover's wiles, 



l6o THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Just as mortals do when they 
Melt to mirth's and music's sway. 

Twining arms and twinkling feet, 
Up and down, advance, retreat ; 
Thus they pass the time until 

Trumpets tell the kingly court, 
In its royal, right good will, 

Comes to patronize the sport, 
Just as earthly monarchs do 
At some fete or grand review, 
Show themselves and make parade 
To display their higher grade. 
And keep up the fiction fine — 
Royalty is race divine ! 
Higher race of special birth, 
Not created from the earth, 
Such as common mortals be, 
Common folk like you and me. 

Watching for his cherished prize, 
Stands O'Boyle with eager eyes. 
Hid behind the hazel tree, 
Waiting for his destiny ! 



THE RANSOM. l6l 

Signal from the friendly sprite 
That will end his wateh to-night — 
End his woe and bring him bliss, 
If the plot falls not amiss ! 

In the hard, uneqnal fight 
'Twixt a mortal and a sprite, 
May the good assist the right ! 

Hark the pattering rush of feet, 
Some great personage to greet, 
Sounding like the summer rain 
In the trees and on the plain ; 
Or like wind-blown fields of grain 
When the breeze, in wanton play. 
Sweeps them on an autumn day. 

Hark the little, silvery cheer, 
Sounding low but piercing clear. 
Tingling to the human ear — 
Some great personage draws near ! 

O'Boyle, heart jumping in his breast — 
Intensified its wild unrest — 



l62 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Awaits the fateful pause ; 
With strugghng hope and fear distress'd, 

A breath he scarcely draws, 
But feels that all eternity 

Ma}' in a moment lie, 
When love and hope and happiness 

Hang trembling on the die. 

On they come, a royal train. 
Moving to an elfin strain 
Weird as song of ocean shell, 
Or as from enchanted dell, 
Comes the faintly far-off call 
Of a hidden waterfall ; 
Or as echo's echo dies 
Where Killarney's peaks arise, 
When, at tranquil summer eve, 
The trumpeter, to take his leave, 
Sounds one low, long, lingering note 
From his bugle's silver throat. 

Sweeping down by bank and brae, 
Troops of fairy horse advance, 



THE RANSOM. 



163 




Decked so that their trappings gay 
May the royal pomp enhance ! 

Just as when on kings of earth 

Lords with double purpose wait — 

Shedding grandeur on the monarch, 
Casting splendor on the state ! 



Borne aloft by fairest maids, 

Followed by the bravest knights, 

Comes the royal couch of state. 
Flashing with its m}Tiad lights. 



164 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Low each loyal subject stoops 

And salutes the royal troops, 

Who thus guard their earth-born queen, 

On her visit to the green, 

Lest, perchance, some earthly hand 

Might rescue her from fairy- land. 




And she, as lily pale, and sweet, 
Reclines upon the couch's seat. 
Unconscious still beneath the power 
That robs her of her human dower. 



THE RANSOM. 165 

And the Feadh-Righ, close beside, 
Bears an air of flattered pride, 
As around the ring- he hears 
Voices of his cavaliers, 
Breaking into homage cheers ! 

Now he, marching round the ring. 

Takes the fealty of each knight, 
While beside the couch's wing 

Stands the good and friendly sprite ! 

Soul of pity ! say the word, 

Make the sign, O fairy maid ! 

Human heart cannot afford 

That a moment be delayed. 
« 
Pity, pity, make the sign ! 

'Tis a duty most condign 

For a good and friendly fay 

Wrongful spell to break away, 

And release a fellow maid 

Who, b}' wicked spell betra)'cd, 

Stands deprived of those delights 



l66 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

That the female heart invites, 
Be the}' human maids or sprites. 

Flower of vervain, plucked and kept 
Since the summer zephyrs slept. 
And midsummer's moon had waned. 
Wrapped in cobweb robe obtained 
From the hawthorn when the dew 

On its blossoms thickest la)-, 
Ere the grey of dawning grew 

To the light of shining da}- — 
From her breast she drew it forth, 

She the best of fairy band, 
Looked to east, west, south and north 

And, aloft from lifted hand, 
Flung the ashes of the flower 

In the course her mind impelled, 
'Til it broke in dusty shower 

On the rod the mortal held ! 

Then O'Boyle, with instant spring, 
Gained the center of the ring. 
Close beside the fairy king ! 



THE RANSOM. 



167 



iffitPTv^M^ 




And ere that monarch, mind distraught, 
Could utter word or shape a thought, 
The rod to rapid action brought ! 

Rapid, rapid, for the hand 

Works fast at love's or fate's command ! 

No forked lightning ever played 

Adown the thunder's cloud cascade 

As quick as he cut crosses three 

Above that royal canopy ! 

Nor ever foUovired human eye 
More rapid motion through the sky ! 

Cries of terror and defeat 

Sudden filled the midnight air ; 

Rushing sounds of tiny feet 

Here and there and everywhere; 

The baffled monarch's own retreat 
Proclaimed his wild despair ! 

Of all the myriad fairy host 

The Lanan Shie alone stood near, 

Serene and stately, for good deeds 
Need never prompt to flight or fear 



1 68 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




THE MOON 

THAT FOR 

A MOMENT 

SANK 

Behind the cloud's dark drifting 

bank, 
Came out again and shone more 

bright 

Than she before had done that night, 
As if approval to make known 
Of what the night's good work had done. 
As brighter still her beams came down, 
The very sky chased all the frown 
Of clouds away — when pronely there 
Finoula, pale as death, and fair, 
Within the fairies' circling mound, 
Lay wrapped in trance upon the ground; 
And round her shapely, silken head, 
The moon an aureole had shed. 
But it is earthly slumber now ! 
And see across her flushing brow 



THE RANSOM. 169 

A languid hand she slowly draws, 

As if to brush away some cause 

Of strange bewilderment that holds 

Her mind in vague, strange-visioned folds. 

Her bosom's swell and breathings deep 

Bespeak a trouble in her sleep ; 

Her lips, half parted, make a sound, 

And yet her voice by spell is bound ; 

While through the frame, with quivering force, 

A tremor runs its rapid course. 

As if to ease some inwafd pain 

Or break away some fettering chain 

That still her freedom doth restrain. 

But to her cheek there comes the hue 

That doth the rose's heart imbue, 

Presaging in the inward strife 

Return at length to human life. 

The deep-drawn sigh, that deeper grows. 

From out a wearied spirit flows ; 

As if that spirit had been gone 

On journey far and hard and lone, 

In some strange region all unknown ; 



17© 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And now, returned to home and friends, 
Falls fainting as the journey ends, 
But still — what reason can there be ? 
She does not wake, she is not free ! 
What is it that remains to give 
Inspiring force and bid her live ? 

O'Boyle, impelled by impulse strong — 
(Could it be sin — could it be wrong, 
I'Vom virgin lips to taste the bliss 
Of love's own pure aad holy kiss ?) 







STOOPED DOWN AND TOUCHED HER LIPS WITH HIS. 



THE RANSOM. I/I 

He knew it not ! but seeming chance 
Will often righteous cause advance ! 
That was the one remaining thing — 
One touch of true love's lips — to bring 
Her back into the world she knew 
Before the wanton fairy threw 
His wicked spell that worked such harm — 
A human kiss the counter- charm ! 

And as she oped her languid eyes, 
'Twas with a timid, shy surprise, 
And blushes deep that crimsoned o'er 
Her cheek and brow, so pale before, 
As bending, kneeling by her side. 
And proud as bridegroom looks on bride, 
She sees a stranger and alone 
Gaze on her as his very own ; 
His eyes with eloquence astir 
Conveying thoughts, and all of her — 
His look intense from eyes all bright, 
Lit at the flame of love's own light, 
A message sends; she understands. 
And strctchin'7 forth to him her hands 



172 



THE BORROWED BRIDE. 




She looks into his eyes, which 
¥ tell 

'^^^ The tale that maidens love so 
well 
To hear, and when expressed 
in words 
^^ Sound sweeter far than songs 
of birds 

In flowery meadows gay, when 

» 
June 

Sets nature's rhythmic heart 

in tune. 



■'^A^ What confidence a child pro- 



^. 



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I'^^^S When in its mother's arms it 






throws 

Itself and feels supremely safe 
From all its little ills and woes ! 

And so Finoula, from her trance 
Awakened, seeks a place of rest ; 

Supported by O'Boyle's strong arms, 
She finds sweet comfort on his breast. 



THE RANSOM. 

Words belong to shallow passions, 
Grandly speechless are the strong ; 

Language dies in deep emotions, 
Silence sings love's truest song. 

The tale must not delay to tell 

The secret of the new-born spell 

That in the chief's reviving kiss, 

Awoke Finoula's life to bliss. 

Go ask your heart, if you would know, 

And idle questionings forego ! 



^71 





RUINS OF DONEGAL CASTLE (MODERN). 



174 




VII. 



¥l^e RetuFn. 




176 



THE RETURN. 



177 



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l^VEN score horsemen of the Rosses, 
Formed the gallant cavalcade,^^ 
To escort the fair Finoula 

Back to Cruaghan's royal shade — 
Back to all the love and homage 

That had mourned her deep and long ; 
Back to all the joy of welcome — 
Feast and tourney, dance and song. 



Seven score sleek and dappled horses, 
Prancing in their proud array, 

With their gold-embroidered housings, 
And their trappings, rich and gay ; 



178 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Champing bridle bits of silver, 
Straining reins of silken braid, 

Whisking with their tails the tassels 
On their saddle cloths' brocade. 



Seven score riders, brave young champions, 

Pride of Boylagh's chivalry ; 
Quickest in the sportful contest, 

Surest in the deadly fray. 
Flowing cloaks descend from shoulders, 

Soft and graceful, fold on fold, 
Over saffron tunics 'broidered 

With fine threads of reddest gold. 

Circling brooch of whitest silver. 

Set with many a flashing gem. 
Held the cloak across each bosom, 

Spear points radiant from the stem ; 
Sparkled all this changing brilhance 

In the light of morning skies, 
While each cloak, in five hues folding,'** 

Blent all nature's gayest dyes. 



THE RETURN. 

On each back a white bronze buckler, 

Bossed with gold, found glowing rest, 
While each sword-hilt's scintillations 

Did a wealth of gems attest ; 
Pearl, carbuncle, beryl and amber, 

In the morn's diffusing rays 
Flashed and sparkled, merging colors 

In one iridescent blaze. 

Golden fillet at the forehead, 

Backward tossed the flowing hair, 
Sleek and shining in its tresses 

As the coat the otters wear. 
Round each neck a golden collar. 

From whose yellow burnished sheen 
Gleamed a great white eye ot crystal. 

Or an orb of emerald green. 

Kilts "^ with red gold interweavings ; 

Greaves embroidered green and white ; 
Shoes with clasps of red bronze on them ; 

Spurs of silver shining bright. 



179 



l8o THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Seated thus on prancing coursers, 
On their swift mane tossing steeds, 

Every youth had won the honor 
By the right of gallant deeds — 

Won the honor, prized in Erin 

More than wealth of richest mine, 
To escort so fair a princess, 

Of so famed a royal line ; 
For it was the rule that beauty 

Honored but the laureled lance, 
And but chivalry could brother 

That proud, reckless youth, Romance ! 

Fair the chariot, high and stately. 

Drawn by six dun-speckled steeds. 
With its swaying seat of wicker, 

Made of whitest sallow reeds ; 
With its canopy, broad spreading, 

To protect from sun and rain. 
Decked with birds of brightest plumage. 

From the great wide, western main."" 



THE RETURN. 



I8l 




There the great white- tailed sea eagle 

Held its rightful, royal place ; 
And the shelldrake, green and glossy, 

Showed its rufif of snowy lace ; 
There the guillemot sat upright, 

And its white- encircled eye 
Gleamed from out a head brown-hooded, 

As if danger to discry. 



There the speckled northern diver 
Puffed its red throat to the breeze, 



1 82 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Proud as when it charged the billows 
On its surging natal seas. 

There the fierce-eyed yellow gannet 
Matched the shag, in glossy green, 

While the long-winged, black sea-parrot 
Raised its orange bill between. 

Many more, all bright of plumage, 

Denizens of land and sea, 
That I must not wait to mention. 

Decked the chariot's canopy ! 
And as morning's beams shone on them, 

Bright they flung their hues afar. 
Flashing like a blazoned banner — 

Banner fit for beauty's car ! 

And beneath, on softest cushion. 
Sat Finoula, sweet as May, 

Beaming from the festooned hangings 
Of the chariot's drapery ; 

Richly robed was she and jeweled. 
As beseemed her birth and name, 



THE RETURN. 



183 



As became her flowering beauty, 
And its far extending fame. 




Samite cloak of softest weaving 

O'er a robe of silken fold ; 
Brooch with rays of many colors, 

Set in bars of beam\' gold ; 
Whitest bronze her little sandals, 

Studded round with many a gem 
Tunic of the changing purple, 

Golden fringed at side and hem. 



1 84 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Have you seen a wreath of gowans 

Round the white neck of the swan ? 
So the gold and amber necklace 

Round the maiden's shoulders ran ; 
And upon her head, so dainty, 

Shaped and poised with queenly air, 
Pressed the viiiid"'' of gold and jewels, 

Clasping down her spiraleil hair — 

Hair of night and eyes of morning, 

Cheek of lily tinged with blush. 
Lips as red as ripened berries 

Melting on the rowan bush ; 
Teeth like pearls from the Lannan,"- 

Noble air and gracious mein, 
Fair Finoula looks this morning 

Picture of a sweet young queen. 

Twelve of Boylagh's bright- faced maidens, 
Eyes asparkle, hearts elate. 

Seated on their broad-backed ponies, 
On the dear young princess wait ; 



THE RETURN. 



185 



And O'Boyle, his woes forgotten, 

Face abeam with love and pride, 
Deftly reined his mettled charger 




CLOSE THE CHARIOT WHEEL BESIDE. 

Manly grace and goodly stature. 

Presence fine and princely air; 
Favored he should be of woman 

While the handsome draw the fair, 
Flowing cloak to spurs descending, 

Broad, white brow neath bonnet gay, 
Plumed with sable crest of heron, 

From the cliffs of Maghery. 



1 86 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And away in front and round them, 

Baying, thrilling for the chase, 
Leaped the hunting hounds of Boylagh, 

Famed for swiftness, strength and grace ; 
Baying at the scent of quarry, 

Bounding at the sight of bird, 
For the prospect of a hunting 

All their sporting blood has stirr'd. 

Mark that convoy — chariot, horsemen, 

Jeweled armor and brocade. 
Flashing back the mornmg sunshine — 

'Tis a sightly cavalcade ! 
Boylagh must make demonstration, 

(Pride of clan is strong and high), 
To outvie the men of Connacht, 

And propend King Cathal's eye. 

Thus the chariot, thus the escort 
Winding by Gweebarra bay ; 

Clanking swords and clattering horse-hoofs 
Tell their progress on the way. 



THE RETURN. 

Far behind fades wild Tra-Enagli, 
Sea strand of the screaming bird, 

Where the myriad fowls of ocean 
O'er the billows' roar are heard. 

Now the silvery sands of Narin 
Take the impress of their feet ; 

Wind they past Kilclooney Cromlach^'^ 
With its own love-story sweet. 

Turn they now towards the Glenties, 
Through the mountains' deep defile, 



187 



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Down the broad, green glen of hunting- 
Faud-na Sealga — mile on mile, 



1 88 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Til the Dysard^^ with its hospice, 
Bids them halt and rest awhile. 

Rest beside the mission chapel, 

With its house and holy well, 
Set within a mountain valley, 

Subtler- charmed than words can tell. 
Fittest place for pious purpose. 

Well the ancient Citldees^- knew. 
And to make the soul receptive, 

They refreshed the body, too. 

Nature's charms conduce to reverence, 

This by spirit thought they found. 
So they built their shrines where nature 

Spoke of God in all things round. 
Making, as the springs for goodness, 

Love and gratitude alone. 
Not the quaking fear of cowards 

For the crimes they must atone. 

Sweet the fare that was provided 
From the brothers' good supply ; 



THE RETURN. 189 

Well did feast the men of Boylagh 

On the sward beneath the sky ; 
Fattest game the mountains furnished, 

Sweetest fruits the valleys gave, 
And the honey-brewed Methaglin^^ 

Circled round in golden wave. 



And Finoula and her maidens 

Sipped the cordial berry wine, 
Sweetened with the mountain honey 

And the milk of snow-white kine.^' 
Now the chessboard,^^ ever present, 

Having fed the mind with play, 
They are ready, and remounted 

For their journey, glad and gay. 

Skirting Carnaween, high towering. 
With its age • forgotten dun. 

Pass they now adown the Eny 
With the sinking of the sun, 

And as night's black-growing shadows 
Darkling o'er their pathway fall, 



190 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

They have reached the outer ramparts 

Of the Castle Dmi-na-Gacl,^'^ 
Where with welcome, as of kinsmen, 

They may wait the morning call. 
Kinsmen true, and hardest fighters 

In the Cinel-Conel ranks, 
From the iron cliffs of Malin 

To broad Saimer's verdant banks. 

Soft the white moon bathed the castle 
In a flood of silvery beams. 

And the inmates, wrapped in slumber, 
Dreamt in peace their pleasant dreams ; 

Sweet the dream of fair Finoula — 
May it be as it beseems ! 

Ere the dawn's grey mist had melted 
In the sunshine of the morn, 

Sounds of life bestirred the castle. 
Waking-call and gathering-horn, 

Steeds drawn up in goodly column ; 
Pawing hoof and shrilly neigh, 



THE RETURN. 



191 



Told that seven score horse were eager 
To resume their gallant way. 

" May the Virgin, shield of virtue, 
Guard you to your father's door, 

Guide and guard you, gentle princess, 
Now and for the evermore," 




PRAYED O'DONNELL'S AGED CHAPLAIN 

Standing on the gateway high, 
'Til the cavalcade, departing, 
Long had faded from his eye. 



19- THE BORROWED IIRIDE. 

Radiant seems your world, Finoula, 

Life one fair, delicious dream ; 
Love's own look is in the heavens, 

Love's own song in ever}' stream I 
On your brow the air feels tender 

With caress and soft with glow, 
For it is your first-love's morning — 

Morn no mortal twice may know ! 

None the need has love for language ; 

Heart seeks heart and soul finds soul, 
'Til, ensphered within each other, 

Both pulsate to one control. 
Hearts that thrill to love have voices, 

Souls can see and recognize, 
'Til they stand, confessed companions, 

Mirrored in each other's eyes. 

Time is not. nor season, needed, 
Weak the love that has to grow ; 

Love, to be the love of lovers. 
Must transfix with single blow. 



THE RETURN. 



193 



Thus so sweet the journey homeward, 

Past Bundoran's cresting bar, 
Round the base of steep Benbulben, 




GLEXCAR. 



194 



THE BORROWED P.RIDE. 



By the banks of mountain torrents, 

Through defiles and broad estates, 
'Til the midnight stars looked on them, 




THUNDERING AT SIOL MURDACH'S GATES. 



THE RETURN. 1 95 

" Rouse the guardsmen," cried the monarch, 

Startled from a fevered sleep ; 
" Call the axmen to the ramparts, 

Man the parapets and keep; 
Fling the blazing torches foeward. 

That we may the better see 
Who has dared assault our fortress — 

Deep shall be his misery ! " 

Stirred to anger was the monarch, 

At the insolence that dared 
Thus to beard him in his castle — 

Insolence of pride unheard ! 
Clasped he on his armor quickly, 

Seized his sword and outward strode, 
While around him rose the war cry : 

" F'ag ac Bealach ! "7° — clear the road ! 

Followed fast a reign of tumult ; 

In the blazing torches' light 
Flashed the naked blades of warriors, 

Temper-proved in many a fight. 



196 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

But the sentry on the rampart, 

Swung his torch and shouted " Hold ! 

For they bear the flag of friendship, 
With the shamrock on its fold " 



Twelve full days of sport and feasting, 

So went forth the king's decree ; 
On the twelfth, " No need to tell me," 

Said he, " what my eyes must see : 
Youth, you truly love Finoula, 

And she loves you well and deep ; 
Take her — take her, with my blessing — 

You have won her, you should keep. 

" God has cured my vain ambition 

That would sacrifice her weal. 
For a sinful war alliance 

With the Red Hand Chief O'Neill. 
Much I've thought and much Fve suffered, 

In the past long, lonely year, 
And I, in this strange occurrence, 

See the hand of God appear, 



THE RETURN. 



197 



" Wasting war is spared to Erin, 
Saved my child's life happiness, 

All my days and deeds remaining 
Shall God's holy purpose bless. 

Down I lay the stafif of ruler, 

And my son shall take my place, 







IN THE ABBEY OF ST. FRANCIS,'' 



I will end my earthly race. 



Hitherto O'Boyle's high honor 
Placed a silence on love's claim, 



198 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

And he suffered love unspoken 
To consume him with its flame. 

Now the honor-seal was lifted, 
And, with heart that went before. 

Quick he sought Finoula's garden, 
Told his love and pined no more. 

Sweet the tale was to the maiden, 

Thrilling all her being through, 
Though in spirit she had known it. 

And the words told nothing new ; 
In his ransom kiss she felt it. 

She had read it in his eyes, 
For 'tis woman's gift of spirit 

Hearts of men to scrutinize. 

Great the marriage feast that followed ; 

Connacht blazed from all her heights ; 
And the princely guests were coming 

For the space of seven nights. 
Through the darkness and the deadness 

Of a thousand years and more, 
Lives the memory of that marriage 

In the people's treasure lore. 



THE RETURN. 199 

Like Erin, in ruins, O'Boyle's lordly castle — 

The home where in triumph he brought his fair bride — 
Long stood like a wraith in the lone Loch a Dtnn, 

And frowned at the mimicry of fate in the tide. 
The power of his clan for long centuries broken, 

His people but serfs on their own native soil. 
But, meeding the life-bHss he gave to Finoula, 

The good Lanan Sine still befriends an O'Boyle. 

No want or disaster can ever o'ertake them. 

Nor death come in sudden or horrible form ; 
When tempests or squalls lash the white waves to fury, 

And other boats sink, theirs still weather the storm. 
How dark be misfortune, or bad be the season. 

The shie gaoth O'Boyles have a coin within call, 
Which fact will be vouched for by all the old people 

Who dwell in the Rosses in far Donegal ! 



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NOTE PREFATORY. 

HE best and truest index of a people's character is to be found 
in their mythical creations and folk-lore, because these reflect 
their own actual nature in all its varying moods and develop- 
ments. As every individual writes his own character in his acts 
and expressions, so do a people manifest their natural traits in 
the mental creations which please their fancy excite their emo- 
tions, entertain their leisure hours or soften the strain of toil. 
To really know a people, listen to their fireside stories. The 
importance of studies on this line has come to be recognized, 
and the results will be beneficial to mankind, however idle some withered-hearted 
and bhghted-souled followers of Mammon and materialism may look upon the subject. 
One peculiarity of Irish myth and legend should be noted here, namely, the 
almost total absence of the diabolical and fiendish creations that are to be found in 
the mythology of the Russians and other peoples. Like the Irishman himself, the 
spirit population with which he has so thickly colonized the Emerald Isle is a gay 
and rollicking race, full of fun and daring adventure, and devoted to music, mirth 
and love-making. When they do perpetrate harm it is devoid of actual malice, just 
as the Irishman's own breaches of law arise chiefly from a contempt for formalities 
and limitations, and a reckless exuberance of spirit. Cold-blooded, malevolent fiend- 
ishness, such as marks crimes among some other nationalities, would be an inexpli- 
cable anomaly in Ireland. 

On the other hand, there are more good-hearted, sympathetic, humane and 
benevolent spirits to be found in Ireland than among the myth-creations of any 
other people, and it is this, doubtless, that makes the Irish fairy stories so enjoyable. 
The attributes and pursuits given to the Sidhe (fairy) race, such as music, dance, 
love of beauty, luxury, gaiety, adventure, desire for attention and to be made much 
of; a freedom that spurns narrow boundaries, contempt for the niggard hand, and 
scorn for such virtues as grubbing thrift and pinching economy : the pursuit of 
noble pleasures such as hunting, cavalcades and tournaments ; assemblages and fes- 
tivals where music entrances the soul while oratory charms the ear ; absence of 
carping care and a sublime hopefulness for the morrow and dependence on Provi- 
dence ; gratitude for favors and devotion to all things lofty and artistic, with positive 
brutality and vulgar coarseness utterly unknown— these are simply the attributes 
which the genuine Irishman himself loves, and very largely possesses. Pat, no 
matter how low his social sphere, can never be anything but a gentleman in his 
instincts ; and the uncontaminated Irish peasant, on his native hills, is the truest 
gentleman in Europe. 



A ^ NOXKS. i A 

Page 17. — "The ghosts coming out," etc. 

The Irish have many beliefs — I will not call them superstitions, for I know not 
that they are not true, some of them or all of them — regarding disembodied spirits. 
Death is looked upon with great reverence and sanctity, and in backward districts, 
where so-called civilization has not poisoned natural nobility and simplicity among 
them, the coffin is carried on men's shoulders to the grave, however distant. 
A vehicle, jolting over rough roads, might wound or disturb the corpse. In the 
" Fate of Frank McKenna," told by Carleton, the Irish novelist, the departed shade, 
which appeared to a girl named Daly, complained that "while his friends were 
bearing home his body, the handspikes or poles on which they bore it cut his back 
and caused him great pain ! " The very idea shows the highly poetic temperament 
and infinite tenderness of the Irish nature. After the soul leaves the body it is said 
to be held in an intermediate state, either by earthly affection or some duty unful- 
filled. While in this state it has power to appear to those in whom it is interested, 
or who may be able to assist in arranging affairs left on earth unsettled. If friends 
sorrow hard, the departed spirit cannot rest until they cease sorrowing ; but the 
mother who leaves little children behind her, can never rest in heaven until they are 
able to take care of themselves, and even afterwards she guards them in danger and 
guides them in temptation. Many educated people believe in this maternal guar- 
dianship. Miss Ellen O'Leary tells a beautifully tender legend prevalent in Tyrone, 
a county adjoining Donegal, of the spirit of a young mother who on a stormy night, 
when the father was absent seeking to drown his own sorrow at a public house, 
came down to her children, "clothed in soft raiment," and as they recognized and 
gathered around her she kissed them, pressed them to her bosom, and with light, loving 
touches smoothed out their tangled locks, nursed the baby and put them all to sleep, 
remaining with them until the cock crew— the signal of daybreak, and the warning 
for spirits visiting earth to depart for their own sphere. William Allingham, a 
much-loved poet of Donegal, whom England has tried to steal as one of her 
"British poets," has also embodied this belief in a beautiful poem, which he calls 

"A Dream ;"' — 

" I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night ; 
I went to the window to see the sight ; 
All the dead that ever I knew, 
Coming one by one, and two by two ; 
On they passed, and on they passed. 
Townsfolk all, from first to last ; 



NOTES. 203 

Born in the moonlight of the lane, 
Quenched in the heavy shadow again. 
Schoolmates marching as when we played 
At soldiers once — but now more staid. 

-X- « * * + 

Some but a day in their churchyard bed. 
Some that I had not known were dead ! 

The " long, long crowd, where each seemed lonely," pressed on and one only — 
the shade of his mother — looked his way. 

' How long since I saw that fair, pale face ! 

Ah ! mother dear ! might I only place 

My head on thy breast, a moment to rest. 

While thy hand on my tearful cheek were press'd.' " 

Another belief, which might be traced far back into the ages of paganism, is 
that even after all friends and relatives have disappeared from earth, the ghost will 
still fondly return to beloved terrestrial scenes. In this we have revealed the intense, 
undying Irish love of native land. When an exile of 'Ninety-eight, then old and 
near his death, was asked why he had returned to Ireland, all his relations and 
friends being dead or departed, he replied, " I came back to see the old hills before 
I die." 

" O ye dead ! O ye dead ! whom we know by the light you give 

From your cold, gleaming eyes, though you move no more like men who live ; 

Why leave you thus your graves. 

In far-off fields and waves, 
Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed. 

To haunt this spot where all 

Those eyes that wept your fall. 
And the hearts that bewailed you, like your own, lie dead ? 

" It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan ; 
It is true, it is true, all the friends we loved are gone ; 

But, oh, thus even in death. 

So sweet is still the breath 
Of the fields and the flowers in our youth we wandered o'er, 

That ere condemned to go 

To freeze 'mid Hecla's snow 
W^e would taste it a while, and dream we live once more ! " 



204 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

The early tribes, or colonies, who inhabited Ireland, coming, as they did, from 
the warm climate of India, at the dispersion of the people from ancient Iran, as 
Persia is still called by the primitive inhabitants, naturally conceived the belief that 
intense cold was the greatest punishment a doomed shade could suffer. 

In the belief that there is a general delivery of spirits to visit earth on All 
Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve, the Irish peasant proves the great antiquity of 
his primitive ancestry, for he goes back to the first faith known to exist among 
mankind, i. e., Sabaism, which was composed of love, religion and astronomy, 
and in which the worship of the moon held a prominent place. In the doctrines 
of Sabaism the umbilicated moon, in her state of apposition to the sun, whose wife 
she was, signified fruitfulness. She was also the northern gate by which souls 
were conducted to birth. The crescent was the lunar ship, or arc (ark), that bore 
the Great Father and Great Mother over the waters of the deluge. It was also the 
emblem of the boat, or ship, which conveyed aspirants over the lakes, or arms of the 
sea, to the sacred islands to which they resorted for initiation into the sacred mysteries, 
and, too, that took disembodied souls — ghosts — over' the river of death to Nirwana, or 
their heaven, which, by the way, did not mean annihilation, as now represented, but 
a place of cessation of all pain, as compared with the Christian heaven, pictured as a 
region of active delights. The new moon (the arc, or lunar boat) nearest the winter 
solstice was celebrated with great solemnity. On this night departed shades were 
supposed to pass over to Nirwana, and were granted the privilege of visiting earth 
scenes and friends before departing to the permanent place. Deferring to deep-rooted 
beliefs, the early teachers of Christianity wisely grafted the evangelical upon the 
pagan culture, and gave the ancient festivals a Christian significance. Hence the 
celebration of the moon's solemnity, with its annual visit of ghosts to earth, was 
made All Saints, and the following All Souls' Day, just as the Baal-tinne, in honor 
of the sun's restoration, or resurrection, to full power after the death of the winter, 
was changed to Easter, in commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ, and, too, 
as the great sun festival to celebrate that deified planet's midsummer glories and full 
powers was made the feast of St. John, who was spoken of by the Saviour Himself 
as " a burning and a shining light." 

The belief in the visitation of ghosts is very strong in the Rosses. Mr. W. B. 
Yeats tells how a Rosses pilot, when asked if there were any ghosts there, replied, 
pointing to a village on the shore, " there are two in every house over there." 

Page i8. — " Some power over shades may remain still with vShamain." 

" The peasants in Ireland, wishing you good luck, say in Irish, ' The blessing 
of Baal and the blessing of Samhain be with you,' that is, of the sun and of the 
moon." — Ancient Legends of Ireland, 



NOTES. 205 

Shamain was one of the Irish names for the moon, whose worship is proven 
by the many lunettes, or gold crescents, dug up around Athlone, which itself means 
— Ath, a ford, and hian, the moon — the Ford of the Moon. Many places in Ire- 
land indicate the same worship, such as Lough Kca, the Lake of the Queen, meaning 
the moon, as Lough Grany means the Lough of the Sun. Kilshandra, in County 
Leitrim, is said to be derived from Arshandra, a city of Egypt during the Persian 
dominion, and mentioned by Herodotus ; the names meaning, respectively, the 
Temple of the Moon's Cycle, or circle, and the City of the Moon. The Irish word 
of endearment, asihore, is derived from, and embraces in its meaning, the leading 
principle of the worship of Astoreth or " Queen of Heaven," as the moon is called 
in the ancient scriptures: "The children gathered the wood, the fathers kindled 
the fires and the women kneaded the dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven." 
— Jeremiah, vii : 18. The moon, with the ancient Irish, was the goddess of beauty 
and love, and the word asthore, embracing the full meaning, shows the richness of 
the Irish language. The Greeks, in the word aster — a star — were able to only pre- 
serve half the meaning, and lost the best half. That heavenly luminaries were 
preserved by the ancient Irish as their gods, both for their beauty and the influence 
they exerted on the earth and on mankind, indicates capability for a pure, lofty 
and intellectual conception of ideal deity. The so-called superstitions regard- 
ing the moon's efficience in love and other affairs that are prevalent to-day, come 
down from this religious belief, and when young women throw rice after a bride 
they are pagans for the time being, and offer sacrifice to the moon, as the goddess 
of love and fruitfulness, she herself being the bride of the sun. At the date of our 
legend, the sixth century, it was reasonable enough for O'Boyle to still have a linger- 
ing belief in the moon's control over disembodied spirits, for old beliefs that perme- 
ate the whole spiritual being do not die in a day. This one largely exists yet. 

Page 18. — " Will come with the Caol Shie to dance with the dead." 

Caol Shie ; i. e., fairy music. Cao/, or Ceo^, is the Irish for bell, which was the 
first musical instrument known to mankind. It was much used in Sabaistic ceremo- 
nials, which prevailed for centuries before Druidism — another evidence of the almost 
impenetrable antiquity of the Irish race and language. When Moses described the 
bells attached to the garments of the high priest, he might, had his knowledge been 
extensive enough, included the high priests of the ancient Irish in the same practice. 
The Latin word Coelum is, no doubt, formed from the Irish Ceol, indicating the heaven- 
ly, or sacred use of the bells. The bells were still regarded with great religious rever- 
ence when St. Patrick introduced and preached Christianity, and he wisely gave promi- 
nence to the bell in his ceremonials, carrying one with him wherever he went. This 
bell is still in existence. To this sacred u>e of the bell in the dimly remote ages, is 



206 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

attributable the solemnity with which the sound of the bell is still regarded by people 
whose literature is tradition. An evening gathering among the Irish peasants for 
story -telling, singing and such pastimes, is still called a Kailtee, (^Ceol Shie) i. e., 
fairy music— that is, idle entertainment, without any substance or seriousness. On 
November eve, when the ghosts visit earth, the fairies are said to receive and enter- 
tain them out of sympathetic pity, since the mortals cannot very well do it. The 
fairies like to do this, for they themselves expect some time to get to heaven, and 
they wish the ghosts, on their way there, to " say a good word " for them ; hence, 
they bring their music and dance with the shadowy visitants, as the greatest honor 
and pleasure they can give them — a revealment of the intense love of the Irish for 
music and dancing, and the high esteem in which they hold these pleasures. 

Page 19. — " No Agnus was there to preserve from misfortune." 

The Agnus Dei (the Lamb of God;, consisting of a cake of virgin wax mixed 
with balsam and holy oil, specially blessed by the Pope and covered with cloth, came 
to be generally worn about the time of our legend, and although no council has ever 
formally recognized its virtues, its efficacy is faithfully believed in by pious Catholics. 
Pope Urban V sent to John Palreologus, emperor of the Greeks, an Agnus Dei folded in 
fine paper, on which were recorded its virtues in preserving from danger and misfor- 
tune, and bringing grace and happiness. 

Page 20. — " When past swept the Shie Goath" &c. 

The little whirlwinds that raise clouds of dust on the roads in Ireland, are called 
the Shie Goath {Shee'-gee) — fairy whirlwind — which denotes the passing of a com- 
pany of fairies, who thus wrap themselves in a cloud so not to be seen. These 
little baby whirlwinds are, I think, peculiar to Ireland, and the imaginative people 
of that "land of mystic shadows, of cloud-wraiths on the purple mountains, of 
weird silence on the lonely hills, and fitful skies of deepest gloom alternating with 
gorgeous sunset splendors,"* had to find some cause and purpose for them ; and 
being of a spiritual tendency, they brought in the beautiful fairies to fill the want. 

Page 20.—" Arose from the heart of the old fairy bush." 

The favorite camping or resting place of the fairies on their travels, is around 
some old and spreading hawthorn tree. The musicians and the guards, with their 
little sparks of lanterns, perch above on the branches amid the leaves. The haw- 
thorn is still very sacred to the gentle, or wee people, and no man could be induced 
to cut one down. At the end of the one long street that formed the town in Done 
gal, where I was born, stood a very large and very ancient hawthorn, known as the 
"big bush," of which the picture on page 20 is as near a representation as memory 

• Lady Wilde. 



NOTES. 207 

will supply. The old tree stood on the very edge of the post-road. A storm one 
night rent some of its heavy branches, which drooped over the road and became an 
obstruction to traffic, especially to the farmers' high loads of hay and grain. The 
deputy inspector of public roads ordered it cut down ; but the contractor could not, 
for love or money, induce a man to cut down that fairy big bush, and he would not 
touch it himself, saying he would rather throw up the contract and pay whatever for- 
feiture might be imposed, than lay a destructive hand on it. Then the deputy road 
surveyor got afraid, and finally the grand iury of the county, after much secret delib- 
eration, decided, regarding that fairy-haunted old hawthorn, as Holmes thought 
most fitting for the old United States frigate Constitution, to 

" leave her to the God of storms. 

The lightning and the gale." 
And so the old tree remained until a terrific storm, a few years afterwards, com- 
pletely carried away the overhanging and obstructing branches. 

Page 20. — " Their voices sound sweet, like the Tuatha dc Danaans." 

As stated in the " introductory" page, the Tuatha dc Danaans were a strange 
tribe, or sacerdotal colony, who ruled in Ireland some thirteen hundred years before 
the Christian era. While they fell into the practice of the pagan peoples of earth, 
of deifying dead rulers, deceased heroes and heroines, and assigned some particular 
place or sphere to each, they had but onfe All-Powerful and Supreme God (the very 
name, Supreme Being, now in general use, came down from that remote time) and 
he was called Budha na Baal — the God of the Sun — a term still existing in the Irish 
language, and indelibly stamped on the land by the place-names still in use among 
Irish-speaking people. They did not worship the sun for itself, or any material 
object or thing in the real, but only in the symbolical sense. The sun, with its life- 
giving light and heat, was simply the expression, the beneficent manifestation, of 
their Supreme God, Budh — the Creator of man and, co-relatively, the Father of all 
life. It was not Baalxh&y worshipped, but Bndha na Baal, — that is, the God of Baal, 
and the minor gods and goddesses were regarded somewhat as angels and archangels 
are to-day, except that each was assigned to a particular sphere, showing the artistic 
perfection and order of early man's imagination. 

The erection of the Round Towers and the construction of the mysterious caves, 
symbolical of regeneration, and so numerous in Ireland, are the work of this people, 
who, although ruling in the land only a couple of hundred years, left indelible im- 
press on its language, religion, mythology and legend that exercises yet a permeating 
influence on the people. This, in fact, was the classic age of ancient Ireland. 
The term Achad, which forms a part of so many of the old Irish place-names, would 
lead back to the primitive Accadians, who were scattered from their ideal homes 



208 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

by the fierce and semi-barbarous Assyrian hordes, who broke in upon the tranquility 
and pastoral ease which prevailed in "the land of Shinar." The learned Rawlinson sees 
in Accad , one of the five cities of Shinar, the name of " the great primitive Hamite race'' 
in Babylonia. Achad or Accad is given in all the Irish dictionaries as meaning ' 'a field" 
and in its use in forming the names of places in their new home, now called Ireland, 
they preserved the memory of their delightful Accadian land. The word "Achad" 
included in the compound names of numerous ancient ecclesiastical foundations, 
would seem to embrace a religious significance as well as an affectionate memory for 
the land of their origin, for the Archats, or worshipful, were a high order of Budhis- 
tic priests, still existing in Thibet, who were supposed to be perfectly pure, infallible, 
endowed with miraculous powers and to see in their rapt visions the Nirwana. A 
general love of all animals was part of their moral code, each animal being, perhaps, 
a neighbor, or mayhap a relative, as in the legend of the Gatama Budha, whose wife 
had been his partner in previous stages of animal and human existences. The acme 
of the Archats' spiritual life was to avoid everything bad, to do everything good, to 
tame their thoughts, to get rid of all selfish desires and passions, even to the purifi- 
cation from all feeling of joy or pain. Their sacrifices were of fruits, flowers, in- 
cense and eatables (not bloody.) They preached sermons, had processions bearing 
relics around their temples; practiced fasting; had psalm singing, chorals, benedic- 
tions and litanies, and had magic forms of exorcism, storm making, and raising of 
the dead. Their religious maxim was " Honor your own faith and do not slander 
that of others." These were all embraced in theTuatha de Danaan liturgies. Theearly 
Irish colonists, especially these Tuatha de Danaans, are described everywhere as dark- 
complexioned, and we know that the dark people, or Hamites, were then the princes 
among men. " But after Christianity," says Prof. Marcus Keane, in his " Towers 
and Temples of Ancient Ireland," "had brought to light the curse upon Ham and 
his descendants, the Celtic Irish were forced either to abandon the ancient pedigrees 
which they had assumed (from the Tuatha de Danaans), or else to declare the whole 
stock of ancestors to have been contaminated by the blood of Ham. This explan- 
ation, to my mind, accounts for the discrepancies which ancient Irish pedigrees ex- 
hibit." If St. Patrick had not made a bonfire of those i8o voluminous Mss., which 
he destroyed at Tara, the glories of pagan Ireland might to-day outshine those of 
Greece in the literature of the world. 

From Accad we have received the tales of the Titanic races of the ancient 
world and of wars of gods and giants. The hero tales of ancient Ireland, collect- 
ed by Jeremiah Curtin, are of the same order, and both display a common origin. 
Venus was a favorite heroine of the Accadians and so was she with the early Irish. 
She loved Tammuz, the beautiful Sun God, who was slain by " the tusk of winter;" 
and we find in the Tuatha de Danaan mythology that she was the bride of the 



NOTES. 209 

beautiful Sun God and that the latter was slain by "the tusk of winter," 
and his resurrection is still celebrated in Ireland by the young people who get up 
early on Easter Sunday morning " to see the sun dancing," as I have done myself. 

That the Tuatha de Danaans were the Hyperboreans of Greek story there is 
no room for doubt, in the light that modern research has been able to cast upon the 
subject, and the world of to-day has to thank them for helping to hand down the 
choicest heritage we possess from earliest antiquity. As their ancestors, the Acca- 
dians, were the earliest civilizers of Western Asia, and their relatives, the Danavas, 
were the primitive settlers of Egypt, (the Irish Tiiatha and the Egyptian deity 
Thoth having the same origin) so they were among the earliest settlers of Europe, 
for Greek historians admit that "the oracle of Deles, as that of Delphi, were 
founded by priestesses of the Hyperboreans," according to Bryant in his "Analy- 
sis of Ancient Mythology." In another note it will be seen that Dodona, which 
was the most ancient of the Greek oracles, really referred to TotDana, a religious 
name for Ireland, from where the oracles were introduced into Epirus. Abaris, 
who, the Greeks tell, came to them from the Hyperboreans and who was very 
knowing in the art of divination and gifted with supernatural powers, was none 
other than the Abhris mentioned in an ancient Irish poem which describes the 
Hyperborean embassy to Greece at the time Pythagoras returned from his tour in 
Egypt. The real object of the embassy was to see him and get news direct of 
the descendants of their ancestors' kindred, the Danavas, from one who had been 
among them. The Pahlavi, the court dialect of Iran — that is the language of flat- 
tery, deception, insincerity, or sound meaning nothing — is carried down in the Irish 
palaver, as Diana (Di-Ana) of the Ephesians is found in Irish Ana, or Aine, the 
goddess of rivers and fountains, and relatively the moon, or mother of all the gods; 
for the double mural orturreted crown of the former, as given in Kitto's Illustrated 
Commentaries, vol. 5, p. 205, we find also in the crown of the Irish Ana, as still 
seen surmounting the ancient arms of Ireland and used as the monogram of the 
Parliamentary Gazeteer of Ireland. 

If, in justifying the description of these people, as given in the poem, I am temp- 
ted to extend this note, I feel myself, in turn, justified for so doing by the importance 
of these people in forming and founding the ancient Irish nation. Christian histori- 
ans seem to ignore if not misrepresent them, because they were pagan, so-called. 
To this it may be replied that the person who thinks Christianity must be bolstered 
up by slanders on, or denials of, their pagan forefathers is about the poorest Christian, 
as well as the meanest individual, to be found anywhere. As a truth, in the study 
of the Tuatha de Danaans and the influence they left on the Celts who conquered 
and succeeded them, we can alone find an explanation of that most marvelous fact 
in Christian history — the wholesale and immediate evangelization of Ireland without 



2IO THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

the spilling of a drop of blood, and in the lifetime of one single man — Patrick. 

In an inscription impressed on three clay cylinders, found by Layard in the 
earlier Asshur, one of the capitals of the Assyrian empire, and forming the records 
of King Tiglath-pileser I., whose date was about 1 130 B. C, a country named 
Ama-Dana is spoken of in connection with Elam as a conquered territory; how long 
so is not stated, but may have been many years. Elam, we know, was at a very early 
date occupied by a Hamite or Cuthite race from Babylonia, and doubtless adjacent 
Ama-Dana was the same. The remains of Cuthite, commonly called Cyclopean, 
architecture, are found everywhere in Ireland. Speaking of the races, or sacred 
colonies, who inhabited the territory which included Elam and Ama-Dana, Her- 
odotus distinguishes them by. evidently, their religious systems, and he tells there 
were among them the " Budii (Budhists) and Magi." The letters differing in the 
terms "Budha," and " Tuatha" are convertible, so that the Tualha de Danaans were 
the people of Dana, or Ama-Dana, who worshipped Budha; were Budhists and Ma- 
gicians. In Ireland still the traditions of the peasantry are that the Tuatha de Dan- 
aans were great magicians, wonder-workers, who after their overthrow by the Firbolgs 
and Scythians became local deities and still constitute the chief strength and principal 
personages of the fairy hosts. 

Many Oriental scholars trace the wanderings and settlements of the primitive 
Budhists after being driven out of their early Accadia. Marsden, Kampfer and 
others place the date of the arrival of a colony of them at Siam as 1202 B. C; Klap- 
roth gives the date of the arrival of another colony of them in Japan as 1029 B. C, in 
which year Remusat and other Oriental writers say colonies of them entered China 
and reached Ceylon. Irish traditions and ancient annals fix the date of the arrival 
of the Tuatha de Danaan in Ireland as about 1300 years B. C. From the fact that 
no towers, etc., such as those of India or Ireland are found in the intervening lands 
and islands, it is evident that the colony of Budii and Magi who went westward 
made no stopping places until they reached Ireland, to which they gave the religious 
name of Inis Fodhla (Budha) — Island of the Supreme God — and the secular name 
of Erin, the Sacred Island of the West, in memory of their primal home, Iran, the 
Sacred Land of the East. 

The whole time and thought of this remarkable people were apparently given 
to their religion and the raising of temples, still visibly testifying to their great devo- 
tion, as is shown by numerous remains strewn all over Ireland. After some two 
hundred j'ears of the Tuatha de Danaan hagiarchy, or about iioo B. C, the Firbolgs, 
in alliance with the Celts, broke into Ireland and overthrew that power; and the 
cjuestion naturally arises, where did the vanquished go ? Many of the more power- 
ful families were able to remain ; but a majority of them went wandering on, as 
their forefathers had done from ancient Iran. The stork being their emblem, they 



NOTES. 211 

in any event regarded themselves as a migratory people. Traces of them are found 
in the extreme north of Scotland, and the learned Frenchman, Emile Blanchard, 
recently read before the Paris Academy of Science, a paper stating that there was, 
even in the present geological epoch, a land connection betw^een Europe and Amer- 
ica, remnants of which are still traceable from the north of Scotland, through the 
Orkneys, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Labrador by way of Davis Straits. 
The monumental evidence shows that the Tuatha de Danaan wanderers did not long 
remain in the north of Scotland. We next find them on the coast of Iceland, for 
the Islendinga bok, the earliest monument of Icelandic literature, says that the first 
Norse colonists, who were all pagans, found that they had been preceded by holy men 
of worship from Ireland, who abandoned Iceland some time after the arrival of the 
warlike Norsemen. Whither did they go ? They did not go backwards, for they knew 
the fighting Firbolg and the fiery Celt were in possession of their sacred island (Erin.) 
Collecting their relics they proceeded onward, marching behind their ancient standard 
with its rod and serpent, emblematic of their faith, and the migratory stork, repre- 
sentative of themselves, and finally, by the route laid down by M. Blanchard, they 
reached America. Thomas Crawford Johnson, in magazine articles now being pub- 
lished, fixes the date of the first discovery and settlement of America at about looo 
B. C. The Tuatha de Danaan exiles left Ireland a hundred years previous, and 
we know they paused for a time in the north of Scotland, where Tuathan remains 
are still found. That they got from there to Iceland, even should the Islendinga 
Iwk be doubted, would seem to be most positively established by the modern his- 
torian, Gudbrand Vigfusson, himself an Icelander, who says that the very first Norse 
settlers on the west coast of Iceland found people from Ireland there, which fact 
is unquestionably established by the Irish names borne by some of the most famous 
personages in the heroic age of Iceland — '■^ and more especially among the poets, of 
'iuhom it is recorded that they zoere dark-complexioned fuen/' that is, Tuatha de Dan- 
aans. Mr. Vigfusson believes that it was the Irish who heightened and refined the 
strong but prosaic imagination of the Teuton into the more artistic spirit manifested in 
the Icelandic Saga, and the west coast, where the Tuatha de Danaans had their set- 
tlement, is the classic land of Iceland. " Then again," says Charles A. Dana, com- 
menting on Mr. Vigfusson's opinions, ' ' the Eddas, which reveal an ideal of beauty 
and a love of nature not to be found in the Saga, bear internal evidence of having 
been composed by men familiar with more southern scenes and manners — of being, 
in short, the mental offspring of the conquerors of Waterford and Limerick. In 
Bragi's Eddie poem there is an unmistakable introduction of the characteristic Irish 
rhyme method." From this testimony it is evident that the de Danaans' stay in Ice- 
land must have been for a considerable time, and thus the hundred years are accounted 
or, and the conclusion is irresistible that a tribe of exiles from Erin were the very first 



212 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

discoverers of America. The antiquarians who are now engaged in examining the mon- 
umental mounds in the Ohio valley and elsewhere, might, as a preparatory study, famil- 
iarize themselves with the four great pagan cemeteries of Ireland and also with the Irish- 
language, the most ancient in existence, dead or living. These mounds are serpentine. 
We know that the serpent, under the name of Crom Cruath — the green snake god — 
was the personified representative of the female productive nature, as the Round 
Towers were emblematic of the male, both combining the old Sabaistic worship of 
the generative powers of nature, which the Tuatha de Danaans brought with them 
from Iran, when they started on their first migration. 

As the subject of early discoveries of America is one of general interest at 
present, I may be excused for extending my remarks a little further. We know 
from many sources, among them being eleven different Mss. in the National Library 
of Paris, that St. Brendan sailed from beneath the shadows of the cliffs of Kerry, 
A. D. 550, on a mission of discovery ; and that, after a voyage of many weeks, he 
landed in a strange country where he saw inhabitants and taught them Christianity. 
He advanced inland until he came to a great river, the Ohio, or Mississippi, perhaps. 
We know that when Cortez invaded Mexico he found the natives in possession of 
some of the doctrines of Christianity, which they said had been taught them by a 
stranger clad in a long robe who came to them from the Holy Island beyond the sea 
in " a boat with wings," many centuries before, and who promised to return to them, 
Brendan did attempt to return, but adverse winds and old age prevented. He died 
A. D. 578, aged 94. The fact that the natives spoke of a " Holy Island" would go 
to prove the double discovery of America by the Irish :— first, by a part of the scat- 
tered Tuatha de Danaans, whose country (Ireland) was known throughout the then 
world as the Sacred or Holy Island ; and, secondly, by St. Brendan, the greatest 
navigator of his time, and still known as the Saint of Sailors. It is also historically 
stated that a people speaking the Irish language was found in Florida as far back as 
the eighth century. The Tuatha de Danaans, with their migratory emblem, the 
stork, no doubt got down there in time. The inclination to get into a climate more 
like the original one of their I'ace was also present. To trace comparisons between 
customs and language would further confirm this proposition. The paklavi of Iran, 
ihe pa 1(1 7 'eroi 'Erin &nd the poTo zuozo oi the American Indian — all having the same 
identical meaning — was first spoken, I believe, in the Persian vales when the human 
race was young. But I have already overstepped the proportions of a note. 

The sweetness of the voices of the Tuatha de Danaans referred to by the chief- 
tain on hearing the fairy music, is mentioned in the Dinn Seanchas — a very ancient 
Irish Mss. — which relates that five hundred years after the Tuatha de Danaans' 
overthrow and dethronement the influence of their e.xample still continued to oper- 
ate, for " the people deemed each others' voices sweeter than the warbling of melo- 



NOTES. 2 I 3 

dious harps; such peace and concord reigned among Ihem that no music could dehght 
them more than the sound of each others' voices." 

Page 23. — " And sudden, from nowhere, a bit of a, fear shie." 

Fear Shie is a man fairy, as distinguished from the Niamh Shic, woman fairy. 
The most romantic dells and woods are the reputed favorite haunts of fairies, who 
also have their homes under green hill-sides, raths and cairns, and in caves along the 
seashore. What a large spirit, or fairy, population Ireland possessed, is still shown 
in the thousand and more localities whose names begin with Rath, Raw, Ray, or Ra 
— fairy resort — to be met with. But the fairy population, as well as the human, is 
fast falling away, and more is the pity in both cases. 

Page 24. — "And kisses the hills of the Isle of the Blest." 

The Isle of the Blest, an imaginary island off the west coast of Ireland, was 
the paradise of the pagan Irish. As stated in a previous note, the Tuatha de Da- 
naans, or I hyperboreans, dreaded the cold, and knowing that the higher the ascent 
above the earth the more raritied and cold became the atmosphere, they did not place 
their paradise up in the skies, as we Christians do. They were also aware that a 
warm volume of water (the Gulf Stream) swept along the western shores of Ireland, 
and reasoned that any region underneath must be warm, genial and enjoyable. Not 
knowing the cause of this warm volume of water, they, no doubt, attributed it to 
some super-human mystery; and the appearance at intervals during the early autumn 
of a mysterious Island floating on the waves, off on the horizon, gave confirmation 
to the belief in the mysterious land, or paradise of departed shades. This supposed 
floating island is still seen, at intervals, on the western coast from Kerry to Donegal. 
It is, of course, a mirage, produced on the waves by the temperature of the water be- 
ing higher (caused by the Gulf Stream) than that of the air, which conditions 
M. de Lepinay says cause all mirages at sea. This phenomenon manifests itself 
by producing reversed images of vessels, or adjacent islands or parts of main- 
land, showing them at a distance, and the sight is accompanied by an apparent de- 
pression of the horizon. The air being divided into horizontal layers that, under the 
condition mentioned, accept reflections, some of the many small islands along the 
western coast is duplicated, and as the spectre island appears on the sparkling waves 
in the glow of an August afternoon the vision is one of great beauty and spirituality, 
well calculated to take the fancy of an imaginative people, and be their paradise 
when the soul took its departure from the rougher scenes and ruder surroundings of 
earth existence. Nearly all the Irish poets have written of this beautiful phenome- 
non, and it has been variously called O'Brazil, the Isle of the Blest, the Celt's Para- 
dise, the Island of Shades, the Souls' Rest, etc. As in the case of a lake mirage, 
formed on a plain destitute of herbage, the shores will recede if attempt is made to 



214 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

reach them. It would be a subject worth considering how much this spectral island 
had to do with inducing the voyages of St. Brendan, who, it is claimed, discovered 
America in the fifth century and who in any case was the greatest navigator of his 
time. 

" A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale. 
In the breeze of the Orient, loosened his sail; 
From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west, 
For though Ara was holy, O'Brazil was blest." 

* * * * 

Morn rose on the deep and that shadowy Isle 
O'er the faint rim of distance reflected its smile; 
Noon burned on the waves and that shadowy shore 
Seemed lovelily distant and faint as before; 
Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track 
And to Ara again he looked timidly back; 
O far on the verge of the ocean it lay, 
Yet the Isle of the Blest was away, far away ! 

* * * * 

Night fell on the deep amid tempest and spray 

And he died on the waters, away, far away. — Gerald Griffin. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, who lived in the first quarter of the twelfth century and 
wrote a celebrated account of Ireland, describes the origin of the Phantom Island. 
His description is very interesting as showing the influence of Tuatha de Danaan 
culture down even to that date. " Among the other islands,'' he relates, " is 
one newly found, which they call the Phantom Isle, which had its origin in this man- 
ner : One calm day a large mass of earth rose to the surface of the sea where no 
land had ever been seen before, to the great amazement of the Islanders who observed 
it. Some of them said it was a whale, or other immense sea monster; others, remark- 
ing that it remained motionless, said: ' No; it is land.' To reduce their doubts to 
certainty some picked young men went out in a boat ; but when they approached the 
new island, it sank." Next day it appeared again and the venturesome young men 
were again mocked by the delusion. "At length, on their rowing towards it on the third 
day, they followed the advice of an older man, and let fly an arrow, barbed with 
red-hot steel, against the island ; and then landing found it stationary and habitable. 
This adds one to the many proofs," comments the historian, " that fire is the greatest of 
enemies to every sort of phantom ; in so much that those who have seen apparitions 
fall into a swoon as soon as they are sensible of the brightness of fire. For fire, 
both from its position and nature, is the noblest of the elements, being a witness of 



NOTES. 215 

the secrets of heaven. The sky is fiery; the planets are fiery; the bush burned with 
fire but was not consumed; the Holy Ghost sat upon the apostles in tongues of fire." 
All of which shows what an influence the ancient fire worship held on the Chris- 
tian mind even down to the twelfth century. It exerts an influence on our literature 
still for do we not yet hear of " Celestial fires," " those purer fires above," and are 
not all to be purified by fire ? 

The Irish bards had so celebrated the spirit island that its existence was seriously 
believed in all over Europe even up to the opening of the i6th century. "In 1480," 
says Dr, George Sigerson, " two Bristol merchants equipped two ships to sail to the 
Isle of Brasylle, on the west of Ireland, but after nine weeks' vain voyaging they 
put into an Irish port. The Bristol men [who were largely of Norse blood] were 
not discouraged. In 1498 the Spaniard De Ayala informed his sovereign that for 
seven years they had every year sent out two, three or four light ships in search of 
the Island of Brazil [i. e., the Irish ' Hy-Breasail'] and the seven cities. The ad- 
venture was under the direction of Cabot, the Genoese, who discovered the northern 
shore of America a year before Columbus reached its more inviting isles. This is a 
remarkable result of the power of the imaginative literature of the ancient Irish." 
Columbus, who was also a Genoese, must have known of Cabot's expeditions in 
search of " Brasylle," but what that knowledge had to do with helping his belief 
that there was land " to the west," must remain a conjecture. 

Page 25. — " To fair Tir na n'Og, where nor age nor decay." 

Pronounced T'yeer-na-noge, meaning the Land of the Young. It was one of the 
beautiful fancies of the ancient Irish, who personified every thing, that death or 
age, however they traveled and searched, could not find this land. Sorrow could 
not approach it and tear never saddened its soil. It was shaded with flowers and 
shrubbery and noble trees, while a golden atmosphere, unrent by a storm, undim- 
med by a cloud, surrounded it. It was the favorite dwelling place of the most 
aristocratic of the fairies. Elegance and refinement reigned and no rude laugh- 
ter or boisterous merriment was known — an imaginary land whose creation sprung 
from the yearning after refinement of a spiritually artistic people. Yet perfect 
happiness was not there — something was missing. Its lords and ladies longed 
for earthly consorts — the former for beautiful virgins and the ladies for men who 
had distinguished themselves as rulers, bards or heroes; and the legends are innu- 
merable of fair maidens and gallant men having been carried off to supply this great 
longing of the heart and mind. The bard Oisen, son of Fion McCool, and the 
stolen Ossian of Macpherson, came one day on a beautiful lady mounted on a white 
horse by the seashore and gallantly responded to her invitation to mount beside 
her. The horse moved on the surface of the foam and soon Oisen and the seductive 



2l6 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

fairy Niamh arrived at Tir na n' og, where the celebrated bard remained for three hun- 
dred years. At the end of that time, which to him appeared as only a day, he 
returned to earth to find his comrades, but the moment his foot touched the land 
the weight of his three hundred years fell upon him. All his comrades are gone; all the 
ancient gods abolished and a new religion in the land. Oisen looks around and rec- 
ognizes the place as that where he met the beguiling fairy princess. He asked to 
be led where the sun was brightest and to be left alone in solitude to die. But 
St. Patrick, who was then in the land, heard of him and hastened to the place to 
make him a Christian and prepare him for death. St. Patrick tells Oisen of heaven 
and who will get there, when the old bard interjects — 

" I know as well as thou, the brave 
Have endless pleasures past the grave, 
Good chiefs and warriors dwell forever 
On the bank of a pleasant river, 
Or walk with ever blushing maids 
Through flowery fields and scented shades, 
Or hunt the deer o'er dale and hill 
Or in their bowers sit calm and still." 
He then asks where his beloved son Oscar is and his forefathers and kinsmen be, 
and wants to go to the place they are, for 

" To be alone 
In a strange heaven, unloved, unknown, 
As I am now, and have no breast 
To slumber on and give me rest — 
This may be joy, old man, to thee. 
But O ! it were all too dark for me !" 
St. Patrick tells him of God's mercies and the possible salvation of those who 
died before Christ's coming, but Oisen was not attracted by the saint's description 
of the new heaven, and tells him 

" Enjoy thy heaven — I know where lies 
Old Oisen's only paradise." 

And then the delights of Tir na n'og flash on his memory and he wants to get 
back. He confronts St. Patrick with some hard questions as to where his God was 
on certain occasions when misfortune came to the good, but is finally converted 
and baptized. I fear the ending of the legend, rather than old Oisen, was bap- 
tised, and literature as well as history and eternal truth should protest against the 
rule that would attract from the past to glorify the present. It is a very mean prin- 
ciple, no matter about the motive, to belie our forefathers ! 



NOTES. 2 I 7 

Page 27.—" On the fairest green hill of Moy MellshaW her palace." 

As the Greeks and Romans gave detailed accounts of mythical lands where 
their adventurous travelers wandered, or to which the shades of their heroes departed, 
carefully enumerating and describing their rivers and lakes, woods and plains, moun- 
tains and valleys, so the old Irish bards and mystical priests minutely described 
their Ter na n-og, and Moy Mell wa5;, the great plain of pleasure — with its dusky 
dells, its murmuring and sparkling rivulets, its undulating lawns and delightful green 
fields and meadows, bespangled with flowers — on which was situated the palaces 
and gardens of its favored inhabitants, ever shining radiant and bright. While 
mortals were there they could partake of the fairy pleasures, were gifted with youth 
and beauty, and centuries would pass as a single day. Having received their mythol- 
ogy from the Tuatha de Danaans, as we have seen, the ancient Irish held a lofty 
sense of the relations between man and the spiritual world; and like the joyous Greeks, 
who were a kindred but later tribe, they formed their spirit creations on lines of 
perfect beauty, and endowed them with fine intellects, artistic tastes and rich, musical 
voices. Hence their warm and resplendent descriptions of their Shades' Paradise, 
their Tir na n' og and the less consequential every-day haunts of the fairy hosts. 
Page 27. — " You hold bright ideas," the Ceann made reply. 

Ceann— Head or Chief— is identical with the Oriental title of Khan, both having 
the same origin. 
Page 28. — " From hereto the castle of proud Cathal Mor." 

There were many monarchs of the O'Conor line named Cathal, one of the most 
noted being " Cathal Mor of the wine-red hand," so beautifully written of by James 
Clarence Mangan, the Edgar Allan Poe of Ireland. This O'Conor got his soubri- 
quet of " Wine-red Hand," because of the wonderful abundance of the land during 
his reign. The bard says : 

" I walked entranced 
Through a land of morn; 
The sun, with wondrous excess of light, 
Shone down and glanced 
Over seas of corn. 
And lustrous gardens aloft and right. 
Even in the clime 

Of resplendent Spain 
Beams no such sun upon such a land; 
But it was the time — 
'Twas in the reign 
Of Cathal Mor of the Wine- Red Hand." 



2l8 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

The Irish and Oriental poets unite in attributing favorable or unfavorable weather, 
abundant or scarce harvests, prosperity or famine, to the good or bad qualities of the 
reigning king. The Annals of the Four Masters piously state that " Cathal of the 
Red Hand, son of Torlogh Mor, of the Wine, King of Conacht, was a prince of 
most amiable qualities, into whose heart God had infused more piety and goodness 
than into the hearts of any of his contemporaries." Our Cathal Mor lived some 
centuries before. Dr. John O'Donovan tells how " among the O'Conors of Connacht 
the name Cathal — which is synonymous with the Welsh Cadell and signifies warliki- 
— was changed to Charles after the accession of Charles I. to the (English) throne; 
for the Irish, who were attached to this monarch, went great lengths to assimilate 
several of their Christian names to Charles." 

Page 29 — "A meteor bolt with the point polished thin." 

Meteoric stones, very common in the Rosses, are called fairj' bolts. Weapons 
of the stone age, flint arrow heads, etc., also found there, are placed in the same 
category, and are supposed to be the cause of all the sudden deaths or mysterious 
accidents to cattle that occur. The power of music by one of the old hereditary 
bards was the only thing that can possibly revive a person who had got a fairy stroke. 
The Mac a W'ards, hereditary bards of Tyr Conel, performed this function of recov- 
ery by their thrilling strains which roused the spirit from its swoon or called it back, 
if not gone too far away, and caused it to re-enter the body. " In sickness I was," 
said a young woman, who had suffered the fairy stroke, "and I appeared to be dead, 
for I could neither speak nor move, till the song of the poet gave me power. Then 
the life came back and rose up in me again, and the strength came, and I was healed.'' 
This cure is known as the poet's spell, and is a very ancient charm. A more modern 
one is the working of a spell with salt. The Lord's Prayer is repeated three times 
over each of three rows of salt and then follows the abjuration " By the power of 
the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, let this disease depart and the 
spell of the evil spirit be broken. I adjure you, I command you to leave this man 
or woman, (speaking the name). In the name of God I pray ; in the name of Christ 
I adjure; in the name of the Spirit of God I command and compel you to go back 
and leave this man free ! Amen ! Amen ! Amen !'' 

Page 30. — " The Fcadh Righ laughed loud and an antidote tossed him." 

Feadh Righ, fairy king. The belief is that if mortal partake of fairy food or 
drink his chance of returning to earthly life is forfeited. But the fairy chief can give 
an antidote or counter charm if he so wish, and then the mortal may live and make 
merry and dance with the fairy maids till dawn and then return to his home. No 
doubt, much of the reputed prevalence of revelry arose from (he frequency of ex- 
cuses for being out over night. Of course if the fairies had a hand in it, the mortal 



NOTES. 219 

could not help it and therefore should not be blamed. How much man has lost in 
the decay of faith in the fairy powers ! 

Page 30. — " Come on, cried Finvarra." 

There were many names for fairy monarchs, determined by locality or indi- 
vidual peculiarity. Finvarra was a great fairy King of Connacht. 

Page 35. — " It was the faud shaughran and rose in the air." 

Faiid Shaughran — wandering sod. Irish folk lore is full of charitable excuses, 
or rather explanations, for human frailties. If a youth is out all night, he was 
taken off by the fairies, as we have seen, and could not justly be blamed; so also if 
he was absent for a week or longer, rambling away from home, it was because he 
had trodden on the fattd shaughran and had to keep rambling wherever and just as 
long as it pleased the sod to carry him. His movements were beyond his control. 
This .saved much tedious and perhaps unpleasant explanation, and a great deal of bit- 
ter reproof and disagreeable feeling, which, according to the ancient Irish philoso- 
phy caused a useless waste of time that could be more agreeably and profitably spent, 
as well as an interruption in the joyous flow of life which should be the aim of true 
wisdom. To-day in America the impulsato ramble is said to be caused by "the curse 
of the wandering foot." 
Page 36. — " Who ruled over Connacht, head chief of Siol Mitrray." 

Siol Muredoigh, or Murray — seed of Muredoigh, or the mermaid — was the primi- 
tive title of the O'Conor clans who occupied Connacht. Innis Murray, a small 
island that rises toweringly from the waves between Sligo and Donegal at the en- 
trance to Donegal bay, gets its name from this source. The people living on the 
Island are very primitive, and up till fifty years ago were still strong in ancient be- 
liefs and practices. But a priest at that time demolished the stone image they had 
set up for adoration as Father Moloch (St. Molaise). 

Tadgh-an-eich-ghil — " Teague of the White Steed" — was, according to John 
O'Mahony's Irish genealogy, edited by Michael Cavanagh, the first to take the name 
of O'Conor. His family held the Sovereignty of Connacht from the 3d till the 15th 
century, and two of his ascendants became monarchs of the whole of Ireland, Ruadiric 
O'Conor being the last of the Melesian Ard Righs, or Head ICings, of that nation. 

Page 36. — " And viewed the Ard Righs hip of Erin in store." 

Ard Righ: — from Ard, the high place, zxiiiRigh, king or ruler, and hence the 
High, or Head King, whose royal residence, down to the middle of the seventh cen- 
tury, was on the hill of Tara. In a very distant past the country was divided into 
five kingdoms, and this division lasted down to the Norman invasion. These king- 
doms were subdivided into a number of petty principalities. Hence there were four 



220 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

classes of kings: chief or icing of a territory, the king of four territories, the king 
of a province and the Ard Kigh or Head Monarch of all. Each king's rights, priv- 
ileges and duties were regulated by law. 
Page 37. — " The monarch sits high on the ogam-carved fuclila." 

Ancient Irish banquet halls were arranged so that the monarch sat on a. fuc/ila, 
or dias. In front of him was the seat for the champion of the clan or a specially 
honored guest. On either hand were long tables, at one of which set the Olavs, or 
learned doctors, the Brehons, or law gives, warriors, tributary chiefs, lords of dis-' 
tricts, etc., according to rank. At the other table, which was raised somewhat, sat 
the minstJels, bards, magicians, jugglers, buffoons, etc., to supply the amusement. 

Page 38. — " To honor the sun as a charm against drought." 

This was a relic of the ancient Sun worship, and the passing of liquid refresh- 
ments in the course of the sun, from east to west, was considered a perfect preventa- 
tive charm against an unfruitful season, caused by drought. 
Page 38. — " Wise Olavs of learning and lords of the tribute." 

Olavs, or Olamhs, were the scientists and learned men, the chief doctors and 
professors who ranked in the social order next to royalty; such was the respect shown 
for learning. The Olavs, or Olamhs, took their title from Ollahm Fodhla, (the 
learned man of Fodhla,, or Budha — God) who was ruler of Ireland in the ninth 
century before Christ, and organized a parliament with triennial assemblys, or ses- 
sions, at Tara, the members being chiefs, priests and bards, who digested the laws 
into a record called the Psalter of Tara. He also founded schools of philosophy, 
astronomy, poetry, medicine and history, which were protected by his successors. 
Subsequently King Corniine Mc Art enlarged the educational establishments and added 
to the number of military academies and law schools, and instituted the registration 
of individual histories. The schools were also encouraged by King Nial of the 
Nine Hostages, who pushed his conquests into Scotland, England and Gaul and was 
killed on the banks of the Loir by an arrow ; also by Nial's successor. King Dathi, 
who, pursuing the conquests of his predecessor still further, was killed at the foot of 
the Alps, while on a military expedition in which he hoped to tame the proud eagles 
of Rome herself. The office of Olav was the highest to which intellectual attain- 
ments might advance the devotee of literature. In social status yielding only to 
the chieftain, the Olav was always independent of him, and very often his master. 
Despite the express orders of the Ard Righ, Leoghaire, we find the leader of the 
bards rising to salute St. Patrick on his entrance to 'Para. Nor were his fellow- 
clansmen indifYerent to his worth. In these degenerate days, when learning is very 
often forced to the wall, the position of the Olav, with his twenty-one cows and 
their grasses, his Iwenty-luur attendants, his two hounds and his six horscb, his 



NOTES. 22 1 

power of temporary sanctuary and his fixity of tenure, cannot but afford a very en- 
viable contrast. Next in rank to the Olav the Shanachi was at once the poet 
and historian of the local tribes, and the File was but a poet-historian. Yet their 
offices were by no means insignificant, as the very life of the clan depended on gen- 
ealogy, history and topography. 1 he literature was traditional in its cast, its chief 
works relating to the description of predatory and romantic expeditions, genealog)- 
and history. Hence arose a fondness for truth and an aversion to Utopias. Hand 
in hand, with the love of truth, was the unique outburst of fancy which is so char- 
acteristic of their literature. Poetry was everywhere so prevalent, indeed, that we 
are told that when St. Patrick, in conjunction with the representatives of the chief- 
tains, had revised the " Senc/nis Jlfor" the great digest of the laws of the Gael, 
Dubtach, a bard, as well as Brehon, "wound around it all a thread of poetry." It 
is a fact little known that the poetry of Europe and America owes the origin of rhyme 
— the regular feet measure and the chiming words at the end of the concordant lines 
— to the Irish bards, whose keen and sensitively trained ears demanded melody at 
every point. It is beyond all question that end rhymes are found in the most ancient 
Irish verses, such as those of Ludag, son of Ith, and others who lived before the 
Christian era. The Greeks and Romans had an elaborate and pleasing metrical 
system, but they never rhymed; and it was the Irish saint Siadal who, in 450 of this 
era, introduced the Irish terminal sound, echo or rhyme into Latin hymns, and hence 
into Latin poetry, where itwasunknown before, its influence extending over Italy and 
trans-Alpine Europe and spreading with the spread of Christianity, for some of St. 
Siadal's hymns are sung this day. The Irishman, Mailduff, first Abbot of Malmesbury 
(Mailduff's Burg) introduced it in Britain. Thespeakers of the Gothic dialects were 
not advanced enough in auditory development for rhyme until the ninth century, when 
they generally adopted it. The Irish also introduced it in Scandinavian poetry at a 
very remote era. Thus at these very early dates did bardic art radiate through 
and powerfully influence the poetry of all Europe. This one fact alone proves that 
ancient Irish civilization was not only peerless and superior to anything in Europe, 
but was of a very high order, for music is, withal, a touchstone of true refinement 
and the test of its daughter— sensibility. 

The only thing existing to-day like the Irish bardic system is found in the 
sacred bards of Kathiawar, who still fill a large place in the society of Western 
India, and are genealogists and historians as well as bards. They are exempt from 
taxations to which other classes are subject, and enjoy many privileges. Their blood 
is considered sacred, and if one of them should commit tragga, or self-sacrifice, be- 
cause he was neglected or ill-treated by the ruling chief, that act would work the de- 
position and excommunication of the chief. Hence they are well provided for and 
their wishes granted. Among their other privileges, the Rhets, or minor bards, con- 



222 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

trolled exclusively the whole carrying trade of India. The Charuns, or higher order, 
are ever attendant on the chief, accompanying him everywhere, especially on expedi- 
tions of love and war, to describe the emprise in glowing verse ; or on off occasions, 
and surrounded by an admiring and sympathetic audience, the bard will launch out in 
the flowery language of his country and with magical effect stir the hearts of his listeners 
with thrilling accounts of how their ancestors fought in defense of their homes and 
their race, and fell covered with wounds after performing deeds that have left them 
deathless honors, and how, by emulating their example and treading in their footsteps, 
they will make resplendent the blood of their ancient line. This was exactly the 
life of the old Irish bards ; and the poet laureateship of England, of which there is 
some talk at present (Nov. loth, 1892), is only a beggarly and borrowed imitation 
of such bardic orders. While the poet laureate of the whole British Empire re- 
ceives only a paltry p^ioo, yearly, and a couple of casks of Canary wine, the local 
literati of the small princedom of Tyr-Conel, covering little more than the modern 
county of Donegal, had landed property allocated to them to the yearly value of 
;^2,ooo, or about $10,000 in American currency. 

"Lords of the tribute" were subordinate chieftains, who paid tribute to the head 
chief, and in the Book of Rights, a remarkable metrical account of the monarchs of 
Ireland and of the provincial kings, written about the time of St. Patrick, we read 
that the tribute was paid to a large extent in cloaks, tunics, mantles and other articles 
of woolen and linen manufacture, some white, some brown, some trimmed with purple, 
some with fur and others with gold. The publication recently by a parliamentary 
commission of the immense and previously almost unexplored mass of legal statutes 
known as the Brehon Laws, has fully verified the claim that at the time the Britons 
were almost naked savages, the Irish were clad in woolens, linens and other textile 
fabrics of their own manufacture. Cloaks of remarkable richness and elegance, de- 
scriptions of which are still extant, were frequently given in tribute to the higher 
rulers. 

Page 44. — " Sad the Banshie's wail is toss'd." 

The Banshie, notwithstanding her fairy appellation, does not belong to the shie 
race — is not a being of a different order from man. She is represented as a small, 
beautiful woman dressed in white and attendant only on ancient families. There 
are several interpretations as to her origin and personality, but the true one seems to 
be that this fair forerunner of sorrow is the spirit of some mortal woman, whose des- 
tinies became linked by some accident with those of the family she follows — that 
at one period of existence she enjoyed human life and walked the earth in the light 
and shadow of loveliness and mortality. This is borne out by the fact that she is 
always, when heard, crying her mournful dirge in a human voice exceedingly plaintive 



NOTES. 223 

and piercingly affecting. She is veryshy of encountering a mortal eye, and the slight- 
est sound wafted on the breeze drives the beautiful, aerial, floating form from sight 
like a thing of mist. She is generally heard at night ; but instances are recorded 
by Mrs. Hall where she was heard in day-time, in the morning. Most deaths occur 
at night and in the early morning, and hence she is oftenest heard at these times. 

Valiancy translates the name as meaning " the angel of death or separation;" 
but Lady Morgan, the brilliant " Wild Irish Girl," comes nearest to a correct des- 
ignation when she calls her " the white lady of sorrow," and describes her as the 
inadre di dolore of Irish faith. The word may be traced to the Peri Banou of the 
Arabian Nights, whose ideal meaning was " nymph of the air." Her appearance 
is not confined to occasions of death; she also appears in cases of great sorrow, 
affliction or misfortune. 

The O'Conor banshie, like that which follows the O'Brien family, is said to be 
the spirit of a very beautiful peasant girl, who loved too well a young prince of the 
O'Conor house, and died " before the end of the year." Her sin excludes her from 
rest in heaven until the Judgment Day; but as a source of some consolation, power 
is given her to warn the family in cases of death or adversity. Her wail, or cry, 
is said to be the most plaintive sound known to the human ear. An attempt to re- 
produce it will be found on page 44, to which I am indebted to Mr. and Mrs. S. C. 
Hall's Picturesque Ireland. 

Page 57. — " In wreaths to entwine round the horns of Bo-Bana." 

Bo-Bana — a religious name applied to a cow or heifer — when traced to its origin 
throws great light upon very ancient Ireland, and further confirms what has been 
said in previous notes regarding the source whence came its early inhabitants, the 
sacerdotal character of their civilization, and their profound sense of ever present 
and all-pervading deity. Bo, one of the oldest words in the Irish language, is an 
Irish form of Budha, or the All Supreme God; and Bana, the word, is still the 
name given in India to the sacred writings of the Buddhists. Hence, appreciating 
the great value of the cow to mankind, and in accordance to their religious spirit that 
sought to connect everything good with deity, our forefathers, whom we are endeav- 
oring to discern amid the golden haze of mankind's morning, reverently called the 
gentle cow, yielder of the sweetest and most perfect sustenance of life, by the sacred 
name of Bo-Bana — The Created Word of God ! And in the tender and even affec- 
tionate regard which the Irish still possess for the cow we see reflected the sacred 
cow of India. The number of place-names in Ireland, of which Bo (also em- 
braced in their war cries as in 0' Donnell a Boo! — O'Donnell's God) forms a part, are 
innumerable, showing the importance of that animal in the popular mind, while the 
legends about cows, and how they have been fairy-struck, or their butter stolen by 



224 THE BORROWED I'.RIDE. 

witches, are as numerous as the townlands, or hills in aged Erin. The legend of 
the first arrival of cows in Ireland affords a good example of the Irish mythology of 
the Tuatha de Danaan period, some 3,000 years ago. One day a great chief discov- 
ered a beautiful maiden on the glistening white sands of the seashore. She was a 
stranger, and her beauty was spiritual and more than human. The chief carried the 
lady home to his house and treated her as a queen, and all the people of the west coast 
of Erin flocked to the chief's castle to gaze on her great beauty, for the people de- 
lighted to look upon beautiful things and loved beauty for itself, in whatsoever form 
it appeared. The strange maiden proved herself very gentle and wise, and rapidly 
acquired a thorough knowledge of the native language, which pleased the people 
exceedingly. After a time she said she had an important communication to make; 
and the people all gathered in the great banquet hall of the chief to hear the revelation 
which the mysterious and beloved lady had to offer. When all had settled them- 
selves close around, and the spirit of silence and attention had enveloped the assem- 
blage, the Mniroigh (^»iuir, the sea; oigh, a maid — sea-maid, or mermaid) arose and 
told the gathered people that she had been sent by a great spirit to 7ir-/;; (which meant 
the Sacred Island of the west as distinguished from Ir-an, the sacred land or conti- 
nent of the East) to announce the arrival of the three sacred cows, namely Bo-Fitm, Bo- 
Ruadh and Bo-Dhu — the white, the red and the black cow respectively. These, 
she said, were destined to fill all the land with the finest cattle on earth, and while 
the world lasted the people would never know want. This was such great good news 
that the people feared those who had not heard the Miiiroigh speak would not believe 
it, so procuring musicians to go before and sing to the sweet strains of their 
harps to command the people's attention, they carried the sea maiden from house to 
house all over Erin in procession to tell the wonderful tale. When this was over the 
sea maiden complained that she had grown sad because of her absence from her own 
people and asked to be taken back to the seacoast. On May Eve, the great feast of 
Budha na Baal, a large concourse of people accompanied the beautiful lady down 
to the seashore. On the strand she took her leave of them, telling them to assem- 
ble there on that day, one year hence, and then wait the arrival of the three sacred 
cows. Then she plunged into the shining waves which entwined their liquid arms 
around her and bore her off to her native dominions. Next May Eve the shore and 
the rocks and cliffs and hills and mountains even far back were covered with people 
eager to see the three sacred cows — the gift of Bo — come ashore. Precisely as Baal 
had gained the zenith, a mighty commotion came over the waves, and from out the 
agitated waters emerged, sleek of skin, soft of eye, and curved of horn, the three 
cows. The animals were most beautiful to look upon, as they stood on the sunny 
strand and calmly gazed around them. Then each one went a different road, the 
black to the south, the red to the north and the milk-white heifer crossed the plains 



NOTES. 225 

to the very center of Ireland where the king's palace stood. The places where she 
rested at night are still called by such names as The Plain of the Fenian cows, The Hill 
of Worship, Lough-na-Bo (lough of the white cow), Tober-na-Bo (well of the white 
cow), Lough na Bo-Bana (lough of God's Creative word or the sacred cow.) In 
lime she gave birth to a male and a female calf, and from these descended the great 
breed of cattle still existing in Ireland. The legends vary as to the ultimate fate 
of the Bo-Finn. One is that she was struck with a stick by a red-haired woman 
and was killed. (Red-haired people are not popular in Ireland, and are rather looked 
ed upon as unreliable by the dark-complexioned descendants of the Tuatha de 
Danaans.) Where this tragedy is supposed to have happened is called " the plain of 
lamentation," as the Bo-Bana before dying gave a roar that shook all Ireland. 

Lady Wilde gives another form of the legend, which would bear out the claim 
that Ireland was visited thirty-seven years before the Flood by Kassare, daughter of 
Noah, with her band of followers. The legend is : "Four cows sprang at once 
from the earth — two white, a red and a black. One of the four went over to a white 
cow and taught it a mystery. And it trembled and became a man, and this was the 
first man that appeared in Erin. And the man fashioned a ship and dwelt there 
with the cows while a deluge covered the earth. And when the waters ceased, the 
red and the black cows went their way, but the white remained." This story is 
given in the Book of Enoch and ' ' is supposed by Bryant to be a literal rendering of 
some ancient hieroglyph, descriptive of the three races of mankind and of the dis- 
persion of the primal human family.'' 

It is strikingly remarkable how easily the old legends of Ireland, to which Plu- 
tarch applied the name Ogygia — " most ancient land," — can be traced back to the very 
beginning of the human race, or as far as research has been able to penetrate. In 
the above legend we have the first man as coming from a sacred cow, while the 
ancient Persian account of the creation of man describes him coming from a sacred 
bull, as told in the Abesta, or Avesta, the most ancient records of the Persian maji, 
compiled and purified by Zoroaster, who lived about the time the Tuatha de Dan- 
aans migrated from Ir-an and settled in Er-in. The Iranian account says Ormuzd, 
the supremely pure and good being, the Light and the Creative Word, the spiritual 
principle, produced by the Eternal or Time without bounds, ci'eated the germ of 
animal and vegetable life in the form of a bull, the symbol of organic force. Ahr- 
iman (the Greek Arimanes) the evil being or principle of darkness, also produced 
by the Eternal or Time without bounds, having failed in his efforts to destroy the 
sun, moon and planets because they gave light, returned to the earth and out of his 
evil spirit fatally wounded the mystic bull, from whose left shoulder, while dying, 
issued his soul, the vital and conservative principle of all animals, and from his right 
shoulder proceeded the first man, Kaiomortes, who was a dual, or man and woman; 



226 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

and from whose blood, when also killed by Ahriman, sprang Meschia and Meschia- 
nee, the ancestors of the human race. 

The use of charms, spells, etc., to save cattle from the fairy stroke, or witch- 
craft, or being overlooked by the evil eye, is still practiced to some extent by Done- 
gal peasants, just as their ancestors, thousands of years ago, bound the bark of the 
young mountain ash around theTiorns of their Bo-Banas on Baal Tinne eve. In a 
townland called Beltany (Baal Tinne) says Lord Roden, there was a Druidical stone 
circle — rudimentary temple of pre-Christian faith — and inside this circle bonfires 
were lighted about the 23d of December — the winter solstice, or temporary death of 
the Baal — the Sun — for fire-worship, even in recent years; and cattle were driven 
through the fires to preserve them from plague. Miss McClintock, a writer on folk- 
lore in the north of Ireland, tells how a couple of years ago, at Rathmullen on 
Lough Swilly, the milk of Mrs. Hanlon's moilcy (hornless) cow was bewitched by a 
young girl of the neighborhood and would give no butter. Mark McCarrion, who 
lived near Binion and had reputation as a mystic doctor, was consulted, and his prescrip- 
tion was to get nine new pins that had never been used in clothes and put them into a 
saucepan with a pint of the moileys milk ; place the saucepan on the fire and let the milk 
boil. Mrs. Hanlon followed these instructions, and as the pins began to simmer in the 
boiling milk, rapid footsteps approached the door and the uncanny young girl who 
had done the bewitching entered with eager entreaty to "Take off that cruel pot, 
Mrs. Hanlon. Take out them pins, for they're prickin' holes in my heart, an' I'll 
never offer to touch milk of yours again." This was done, and the inoiley cow again 
gives more milk, yielding yellower butter, than any cow in Donegal. 

The binding of ashtree bark around cows' horns to ward off evil originated in 
the ancient Oriental tree worship, and no doubt hadf some reference to the story of 
the Garden of Eden, with its Tree of Life, representations of which, with worship- 
ping priests standing beneath, may yet be seen sculptured on Irish pre-Christian 
ruins, as well as on very antique Iranian rugs and tapestries. T\i& Bo-tree, worship- 
ped as that under which Gotama Budha received the supreme Budhaship, has its rep- 
resentative in Ireland in the hodtree, as the peasantry pronounce it, but which some 
affected people, caM bore-tree, no doubt to take the paganism out of it as Rory 
O'Moore took the Popery from his father's tombstone by cutting the word "don't" 
before "pray for the soul." The ash tree still retains among the Irish people a 
remnant of the great veneration in which it was formerly held, and the belief, men- 
tioned by Virgil, that its outspreading branches endure for centuries and its roots 
reach downward as far as its branches reach upward, is still prevalent among the 
Irish peasantry. Tuatha de Danaan exiles after their overthrow in Ireland, about 
I ICO years B. C, carried the ash tree veneration to ancient Scandinavia where, as 
we have seen, they placed it in the Eddas, or sacred books, which represent the 



NOTES. 



•-/ 



Court of the Gods, while judging the world, to be usually held under a great ash 
tree, whose branches covered the surface of the earth, whose top reached to the high- 
est heavens and under one of whose three roots, embracing in their ramifications the 
whole earth, ran a fountain or well in which wisdom lay concealed — the origin, no 
doubt, of our modern saying that truth lies at the bottom of a well. A horse-shoe 
or the coulter of a plow, heated red-hot, forced the Irish witch to confess. From 
this we get the " superstition" of hanging a horse-shoe over our doors for good luck. 

Page 58. — " 111, ill is her luck if the well's virgin spirit." 

The inborn tendency in man to get near to and associate himself with his Crea- 
tor having manifested itself in the adoration of all things good and beneficial to hu- 
manity, well worship was part of the earliest ritual of mankind, and was brought to 
Ireland by the Tuatha de Danaan tribe from the East, where the scarcity of water 
and its fructifying effects naturally made it an object of worship among a people who 
deified the energies of nature. The influence of the moon on the tides (waters) being 
understood by the ancient Irish, who were astronomers as well as magicians, musicians 
and bards, the wells were dedicated to Shamain, or the moon, and on the eve of her 
solemnity (now All Saint's eve, or Hallow eve) a pure spirit sent by Shamain was 
supposed to visit each well at midnight; and whoever got the first pitcherful or even 
drop from the well after that hour carried the spirit home with her and it remained 
in her home for the year, protecting from evil and inducing good fortune. All 
newly-married women (the moon worship again coming in) regarded the capture of 
the spirit of the well as of vital consequence to their future family prosperity and 
happiness, as well as their fruitfulness, just as the Bengal maidens of to-day as the 
short Indian twilight fades and the stars appear, saunter down from their villages, 
" singing sad-cadenced songs in a minor key" — all about the adventures of the Hin- 
du love-god — and fill their pitchers at some bamboo-shaded sacred stream and offer 
flowers at the shrine of its goddess; or the Indian maidens of Colorado, Arizona or 
New Mexico offer flowers and fruits and indulge in incantations at their sacred wells. 

Page 58. — " A well where no cusha grass floats on its tide." 

From what has been said in the preceding note, it may be inferred that the con- 
test among newly-married women to get the s'gaith an tober* oi some specially sacred 
well was even more than eager. She who reached there first and filled her vessel 
had to throw a handful of grass — the cusha grass which grows beside water — into 
the well to warn all who came after that the spirit had been already taken, appropri- 
ated or adopted. The disappointed one had either to turn home to face ill luck for 
the balance of the year, or search for a well where no cusha grass told that the virgin 

♦The pure spirit of the well. 



2 28 THE BORR(^WEn BRIDE. 

spirit was gone. By the peaceful appropriating policy of evangelization on the part 
of St. Patrick and other early Christian missionaries, to which reference has prcNn- 
ously been made, these wells, already and for long ages regarded as sacred and pos- 
sessed of most beneficent virtues, were transformed into the Holy Wells, so numer- 
ous in Ireland to the present day, and in whose virtues (often recorded in the name, 
such as Lough Leagh — Lake of Healing) there remains such absolute and beautifully 
simple faith. 

Page 6o. — " But mom brings no jov to the heart of the FeargaeL" 

FcargiU-l — fear, man and gacl noble — a nobleman ; used in a general sense such 
as the Duke, the Marquis at the present day. 

Page 6o. — " The waters of Doihin are vaia to restore." 

Dooan is one of the most celebrated Holy Wells remaining in Ireland. It is 
situated in a wild, rather barren district, not many miles from Gartan Lough, the 
birthplice of St. Columbkille, who is credited with having christened and blessed 
the well. It is yet constantly frequented by pilgrims, even from distant lands, in- 
cluding the United States, and possesses a great reputation for its curative virtues. 
The number of crutches, left by the lame and crippled who had been miraculously 
and instantly cured by its waters, furnish palpable testimony in this respect. The 
rags, handkerchiefs and other pieces of cloth, left hanging on sticks as the votive 
offerings of the pilgrims (as will be seen in the illustration on page 64) are strongly 
remindful of the far past — even of the early days of the world when the Delphic 
oracle had its origin in nothing more than a sacred well, picturesquely situated and 
shaded by umbrageous trees, on which were hung the humble offerings of the poor 
as well as the rich gifts of gold and silver, crown and precious stones of the kings 
and princes who went seeking mysterious aid in their contests with each other for 
power. Historical recollections also contribute to the deep veneration with which the 
people regard Dooan. On a rock, or rather a sharply rising rocky eminence, im- 
mediately above the well, were inaugurated, for long successive generations, the 
O'Donnells, in the rulership of TjT-Conel, the modern Donegal. Here, too. Sir 
Cahir O'Doherty, the young prince of Innishoen — (/«j-CV//, abode of magicians, so 
named by the Tuatha de Danaans ; not Inis-Owen, island of Owen or Eugene, for 
it is not an island) met his death at the hands of an English assassin, who stabbed 
the young chieftain in the back to obtain a reward of five pounds offered for Sir 
Cahir's head by the English Governor of the Pale. It is gratifying to learn from 
tradition that the cowardly murderer missed his reward, for while journeying to Dub- 
lin with the head in a bag, he slept one night at a peasant's house. The host had his 
curiosity aroused as to what was in the bag, and his guest being in a profound sleep, 
induced by fatigue, he opened the bag and found the ghastly head. Recogniz- 



NOTES. 229 

ing it as that of the prince of Ins-Oin, and knowing of the reward, he instantly set 
off to DnbHn with it, and getting there before the assassin could overtaite him, 
claimed and obtained the reward. " Sir Cathir's youth, beauty, patriotism and tragic 
death ranked him with Hugh Roe O'Donnell and Robert Emmet in the affectionate 
memory of the people of Donegal," says the late Bishop McDevitt, in his exceeding- 
ly interesting book, " The Donegal Highlands." 

The ceremony of the inauguration of the O'Donnells at Dooan Rock are thus 
described by a historian, Lynch, as quoted by the Rev. Caesar Otway, in his beauti- 
tiful Sketches in Donegak "When the investure of the O'Donnell took place * 

* * he was attended by O'Ferghail, successor of Columbkille (in the 
Abbey of Cil-nihac-Crenain — Kilmacrenan) and O'Gallachius (O'Gallagher) his mar- 
shal, and surrounded by all the estates of the country. The Abbott O'Ferghail put 
a pure, white, straight, unknotted rod in his hand, and said, " Receive, Sire, the 
auspicious ensign of your dignity, and remember to initiate in your government the 
whiteness, straightness and unknottedness of this rod, to the end that no evil tongue 
may find cause to asperse the candor of your actions with blackness, nor any kind of 
corruption or tie of friendship be able to pervert your justice; therefore, in a lucky 
hour, take the government of this people to exercise the power given you with free- 
dom and security." 

In the white rod, straight and unknotted, we see a relic of the religious ritual 
of the Tuatha de Danaans, and adopted by the Celtic druids who succeeded them. 
The Chief w-as the father of his people and the white rod was the emblem of that 
dignity. In the inaugural ceremony it was retained by the Christian monks. The 
inauguration stone — (each royal house in Ireland had one) — of the O'Donnells, after 
being removed from the original site on the rocky eminence of Dooan, lay in the 
ruined chancel of the ancient church of Kilmacrenan until about seventy years ago 
when it was either stolen or destroyed. 

Page 61. — " The dolphin, wave stranded, moans long on the shore." 

The dolphin being the sacred fish of the ancients, the favorite of Apollo, 
whose most famous oracle bore its name, and believed to be possessed of great intelli- 
gence, if not partly human, and to be the benefactor of man, was held in special 
veneration by the mythology-making Irish of ancient days. Being sacred, the crea- 
tures were not killed, and so became very numerous in the Mediterranean and north- 
ern and temperate Atlantic, and frequently got stranded on the shores, in which 
mishaps they would make a feeble, but pitifully plaintive noise. No slave or subject 
could touch a sacred dolphin in Ireland ; only the hands, or other aid, of a ruling 
chief could restore it to its native element, and until he arrived, or the tide came to 
its rescue, it lay moaning on the strand. In Ireland it was as much venerated as in 



230 ' THE BORROWED i5RIDE. 

France, where it gave name to the province of Dauphiny and title to the heir appar- 
ent to the throne. 

Page 68. — "The Cailleach Bera, said, " 'and bold.' ' 

Cailleach Bera, the hooded or veiled woman, or priestess, who talked or deliver- 
ed judgment — the announcer of the oracle — was the last famous descendant of the 
Tuatha de Danaans, of whom history or tradition gives account. She was a cele- 
brated magician. While her field of operations extended all over the north of Ire- 
land, her principal residence was near Slieve Gullion, in thefcounty Armagh. On the 
summit of a hill, Sleive na Cally, is a rude stone chair still called Ciilliagh Beras Chair. 
It is described as "a large stone, about two tons weight, ornamented with a cross 
cut into the seat of the chair, in which three persons might sit together. This 
hollow seems to have been made in the stone with a hammer; the cross is probably 
the work of a modern stonecutter. The back of the chair was broken by some 
human enemy of old Evelin." This supposition about the cross having been cut by 
some modern stone cutter, arose no doubt out of the writer's uninformed idea that 
there were no crosses until the Christian era. The fact of the cross being cut in the 
stone proves the pre-Christian, De Danaanite antiquity of the chair, for the ancient 
Irish crosses (erroneously called Celtic crosses) represented death and eternity; the 
cross expressing the primeval prophecy of our Savior's Crucifixion which, it has been 
well established, prevailed among many of the early tribes and nations and most 
strongly among the pagan Irish, for when the knowledge of Christ's birth and death 
was brought to them by St. Patrick they were prepared to, and did, believe it. The 
circle represented eternity, and also the sun's orbit. Another religious meaning taken 
from the circle-enclosed cross was that the sun in his circuit revived, by his heat, dead 
matter, the latter represented by the cross. Evelin, the Cailleach Bera, was a Sibyl 
(from the female divinity Cybele) and the chair was, in fact, the place where the 
Sibyl made her oracular deliverances. The discovery, in March, 1829, in a bog at 
Ballymoney, in the adjoining county of Antrim, of what Dr. Petrie calls "a very extra- 
ordinary piece of antiquity" furnishes proof of this. "Its material," he states, "is of 
that description of bronze of which the ancient Irish weapons, etc., are composed, and 
its size is four times that of the representation" (two feet long by an inch in diam- 
eter). Bronze figures of birds (swans sacred to Apollo and the bulbul of Iran) were 
attached to the sides on movable pins which passed through the tube and the tube itself 
was divided by joints into three parts, which when separated were found to contain brass 
wire in a zig-zag form. The birds were attached to the middle section of the tube and in 
each of the end sections was a hole about an eighth of an inch in diameter. This 
" was the actual instrument through which the oracle of Dodona was announced," 
isthe justifiable declaration of Dr. O'Brien, in showing that the traditional Dodona 



NOTES. 231 

of the Greeks, the seat of their most ancient oracle, was not a place in Greece (no 
vestige of it has ever been discovered) but was the name of the source from which 
they received their initiation in religious rites and oracles; Tot-dana, (which the 
Greeks through their love for the ore rotimdo made Dodona) being an ancient sacred 
name for Ireland. In this the testimony of Herodotus is important where he says 
that the priests of the Greek pagan temples acknowledged to him that " we do not 
know even the names of the deities to whom we make our offerings — we distinguish 
them, it is true, by titles and designations; but those are all adventitious and mod- 
ern in comparison of the worship, which is of great antiquity." The Father of 
History adds that " their nature and origin had been always a secret," and that even 
the Pelasgi, who first introduced them and their rites, had been equally unacquainted 
with their history. 

Near the bog where this relic of the oracles was found are what are called the 
Craig rocks, which " form a square of g,ooo feet in area, having a very deep trench, 
close to which are three pillars erect and tapering. A short distance from them, in 
the hollow of a high and craggy ridge, is a criimlech, commonly called a Druidical 
altar." * Beneath this is a chamber communicating, through a small, sinuous aperture, 
with " two others about seven feet square and arched over — the whole standing 
within a circle of thirty-five feet in circumference, the ground beneath having been 
hollowed into a kind of cavern. f" Any person acquainted with the ancient Buddhist 
religion will readily perceive what these caves symbolised and what was their pur- 
pose. 

Mason's Statistical Survey observes that ' ' this place must have been the theatre of 
great events in former times, for it possesses more remains of antiquity than can be 
anywhere seen in the same space of ground." Here unquestionably were a temple 
and oracle to Apollo, and Irish tradition, so extraordinary in its faithfulness to fact, 
has handed down even the name of the priestess who presided at the oracle, Evelin! 
I would ask some person with more leisure for investigation — Is this not the Dodona 
of the Greeks, whose location has failed to respond to research in that land, and of 
even the names of its deities, to whom they made offerings. The Greeks were them- 
selves confessedly ignorant, showing an origin outside of Greece and even then lost 
in antiquity. Were the two doves, or " pigeons" which Herodotus speaks of in 
connection with Greek oracles, the doves attached to the instrument found in the 
Antrim bog, and was the traditional " priestess," or " old woman," the CaillachBera, 
whose chair or seat is found on the summit of Slieve na Gaily, mountain of the Cail- 
lack, or old Woman ? 

Dr. John O'Donovan, to whom so much is due for his antiquarian labors, dis- 

^llall's Picturesque Ireland. County Antrim. +Same. 



232 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

covered the Cailleach Bera while making examinations in the parish of Loughcrew, 
County Meath, where Prof. Conwell has since unearthed the tomb of the great law 
maker and monarch, Ollamh Fodhla, after whom all the OUamhs (pronounced 
Olavs) are named, and tells some interesting incidents in her career. He says: 
" There are three hills about a mile apart in this parish, having three heaps (cairns) 
of stones on their summits, with which the following wild legend is connected. A 
famous old hag of antiquity, called Cailleach Bheartha {Calliagh Bera) came one 
time from the north to perform a magical feat in this neighborhood, by which she 
was to obtain great power, if she succeeded. She took an apron full of stones and 
dropped a cam on Carnbane; from this she jumped to the summit of Slieve na Cally, 
a mile distant, and dropped a second earn there; from this hill she made a second 
jump and dropped a cam on the third hill, also about a mile distant. If she could 
make another leap and drop a fourth earn, the magical feat would have been ac- 
complished; but in giving the jump she slipped and fell in the tovvnland of Patricks- 
town, in the parish of Diamor, where she broke her neck. Here she is buried; and 
her grave was to be seen not many years ago in the field called Cal a Mota (back of 
the mote"); but it is now destroyed. This is the very old lady whose shade still 
haunts the lake [Cybele, divinity of lakes and rivers] and earn of Slieve Gullion in 
the County of Armagh. Her name was Evelin, and it would appear from some 
legends about her that she was of de Danaanite origin. She is now a Banshee in 
some part of Ireland, and is represented in some elegies as appearing before the 
death of some persons. I know nothing more about her except that on one occa- 
sion she turned the celebrated Fin Mac Cool into a gray old man; but his soldiers 
dug through the mountain of Slieve Gullion until they drove her out of her cave, 
and forced her to restore Fin to his former beauty and symmetry." There are poet- 
ical compositions regarding her still current around Carnbane. 

Page 71. — "But kept their rights, the Bana read." 

The Bana, the Word, or sacred writings of the ancient Buddhists, contained the 
discourses of Buddha, which were, according to a translation made by Mr. Spence 
Hardy, "as a divine charm to cure the poison of evil desire; a divine medicine 
to heal the disease of anger; a lamp in the midst of the darkness of ignorance; a 
fire, like tnat which burns at the end of a Kalpa, to destroy the evils of repeated 
existence; a meridian sun to dry up the mud of covetousness; a great rain to quench 
the flame of sensuality; a thicket to block up the road that leads to the Narakas; a 
ship in which to sail to the opposite shore of the ocean of existence; a moon to bring 
out the night-blowing lotus of merit; a flavor more exquisite than any other in the 
three worlds; a treasury of the best things it is possible to obtain; and a power by 
which may be appeased the sorrow of every sentient being." 



NOTES. 233 

The reading of such a book as is thus described with so much warmth of imag- 
ination and feeling, is just the cause that would produce such a sacerdotal colony, 
elevated in their ideas, spiritual in their conceptions of creation, artistic, loving the 
beautiful and reaching out after mysterious or divine influences, as the Tuatha de 
Danaans. The ceremony of reading the Bana is described as very beautiful and 
impressive; and no doubt, while wandering from the primal home of humanity in 
search of some peaceful and pleasant spot to settle down, the Tuatha de Danaans 
often, as is done in Eastern Asia yet, erected a temporary building, covering the roof 
with white cloth, on which mosses, leaves, flowers, etc., were placed, and with their 
wives and daughters, arrayed in their gayest attire, and with flags and figured hand- 
kerchiefs floating from every convenient spot, listened to the words of Buddha, the 
All Father, and hoped for the time when evil influence from the outside and evil 
desire within would cease, and only wisdom, beauty and peace of the most perfect 
order prevail. 

Page 71. — " The pillar towers of Hercules." 

Hercules was not a Greek but an Indian god; the Greeks, notwithstanding their 
claim to have instituted their own theogony, having borrowed him from India, of 
whose mythology Homer obtained a knowledge while acquiring his education in 
Egypt, a land illuminated from India. When the migratory tribes, after the disper- 
sion of the Iranian nation, proceeded down to and along the Mediterranean, the great 
rock of Gibraltar no doubt attracted their wonder, and in the prevalent spirit of giv- 
ing a personal cause for everything, they thought of their god who performed great 
labors, and assigned to him the credit of having hewn the strait through the gigan- 
tic rock and thus extended the boundaries of the earth. Hercules being the very ancient 
Indian god, who brought back Aurora from the darkness and did other beneficent 
things, must have been well known to the Tuatha de Danaans. 

Page 71. — " The Durga to their priests appeared." 

Another striking evidence of the Oriental origin of the early inhabitants of Ire- 
land is found in connection with this very ancient deity. Dtirga was the divinity of 
the Ganges, which river also had the name of Shan Aoun (Shannon) i. e. "aged 
river." Thus was the Shannon, the largest river in Ireland, called after the Slum 
Aoun, or Ganges, the noblest, as it is the most sacred, river of India; and in the 
lower lake of the Shannon — significantly called Lough Derg — is Dearg-art, the 
high place, the seat of royalty, the abode of Deargox Durga, whose festival, lasting 
ten days, is still celebrated in Bengal, and who was naturally much appealed to and 
depended on by the venturesome colony that braved the ocean beyond the pillars of 
their Hercules; and the boats of these early navigators, as will be seen in the illus- 
tration, had ten oars on each side, in conformity with the ten arms of Durga, 



234 I'HE BORROWED 15RIDE. 

one of whose hands is still representee! as holding a liiscus, or circular piece of stone 
or metal, twelve inches in diameter, lorepreser.t gymnastic exercise and athletic con- 
test, in which it was pitched from a given point to the greatest possible distance 
Here is the introduction into ancient Erin, or the Sacred Island, of the game of 
quoits, so frequently mentioned in old Irish heroic legends, and which the Irishman 
of to-day keeps up, with the true hereditary loyalty of his race, in his game of throw- 
ing the stone. 

Page 73. — " A healing friend the BoreaJ^ found.'' 

Ancient Ireland being the //isu/a Hypoborea described by Hecataeus ; or The 
Island of the " Hyperboreans, who live at the extremities of the w-orid, under the 
temple of Apollo, far removed from the din of war," as Bryant quotes from Pher- 
enicus (Scholia in Pind. Olymp. Od. 3 Vol. 2S); and continues: " They are celebrated 
as being of the ancient blood of the Titans, and were a colony placed in this wintry 
climate by the Arimaspian monarch, the son of Boreas. The two most distant col- 
onies of this family westward were upon the Atlantic ocean; the one in Europe to 
the north; the other opposite to the e.xtreme part of Africa. * * * They looked 
upon themselves as of the same family as the gods; and they are certainly descend- 
ed from some of tiie tirst deitied mortals." It was called the Hyperborean Island 
because it was supposed to lie beyond the breezes of the north wind, and was de- 
scribed as having a very rich and fruitful soil and a temperate climate; " about as 
big as Sicily ;" and " lying over against Gaul." The inhabitants " worshipped Apollo 
above al 1 other gods and their priests had a stately grove and renowned temple of 
round form (a Round Tower), beautiful with very rich gifts " Harpers" chanted 
sacred hymns to Apollo in the temples, setting forth his glorious acts. * * * 
The sovereignty of the city, and the care of the temple, they say, belong to the 
Boreadcs, the posterity of Boreas, who hold the principality by descent, in the direct 
line from their ancestor." Their Nirwana meant hyperborea — beyond the winds- 
from ///;■ — not; va — to blow — not to blow. 

To the Boreades, who chanted sacred hymns to Apollo, we are indebted for our 
modern word Bard, which means more than a poet. It means a singer as well as a 
composer of songs or hymns. 

P.^GE 75. — "Who drew the blood of man or beast 
Was shunned, nor could ennobled be." 
Of all the pagan nations the Irish never offered blood sacrifices to their gods 
On the contrary, they were, before the semi-barbarous Scythian and Celt invaders 
seized the country, a most fastidious and highly refined people whose artistic sensi- 
bilities revolted at the thought of killing and whose eyes were offended by the sight 
of blood. To draw the blood of man or brute was a crime against Creative Power 



NO'IKS. 2.35 

— against the Great Budh — and the person so guilty was not alone debarred from all 
social and religious advancement, but was shunned as one possessed of an evil spirit. 

Says O'Brien in his " Kound Towers" — referring to the reign of the Tuatha de 
Danaans: — "These, I conceive, were the halcyon days of Ireland's legendary and 
romantic greatness. In this sequestered Isle, aloof from the tumults of a bustling 
world, the Tuatha de Danaan colony, all of a religious race, and all disposed to the 
pursuits of literature, united into a circle of international love and spread the fame 
of their sanctity throughout the remotest regions of the known world. That its 
locality was familiar to the Brahmins of India I make no earthly question, — that it 
was the sacred island which they eulogized so fondly and spoke of with such rapture, 
I am sanguineiy satisfied, — and equally convinced am I that it was that beautifying 
region whose widespread holiness and far-famed renown made such an impression 
on the minds of Orpheus and of I'indar when these divine bards, speaking of its 
Hyperborean inhabitants, thus enchantingly sang: ' On sweet and fragrant herbs 
they feed amid verdant and grassy pastures, and drink ambrosial dew, divine pota- 
tion; all resplendent alike in coeval youth, a placid serenity forever smiles on their 
brows and lightens in their eyes, the consequence of a just temperament of mind and 
disposition, both in the parents and in the sons, inclining them to do what is great 
and to speak what is wise. Neither disease nor wasting infest this holy people, but 
without labor, without war, they continue to live happy and to escape the vengeance 
of the wicked Nemesis.' " 

Flattering as is this, it was only a paraphrase, or rather summary, of the moral 
code of the Tuatha de Danaans, which among other things provided "Thou shait 
not kill any animal, from the meanest insect to man himself." Evidences of the 
non-meat-eating laws of the Tuatha de Danaans are found in nearly all the old leg- 
ends relating to them. There is no word in the Irish language for blood sacrifice. 

Here again is revealed the tenacity of Irish faith and tradition, for there is to-day 
among that people an unwritten law that no butcher nor even a butcher's son, can 
become a Catholic priest. So well is this understood that no young man who has a 
butcher for a relative ever offers himself for the priesthood. 

Page 78. — " They knew and felt those tall white sails. 
Within their folds the Red Wind bore." 
The East wind is regarded as disastrous and is called the Red Wind, orig- 
inally because, perhaps, Typhon, the evil principle, was red; and later because of 
the tradition that Judas Iscariot was red-haired. No enterprise was undertaken while 
the wind blew from that quarter — a tradition from the Hyperborean ritual. Lady 
Wilde relates an incident which brings this belief down to a late date: " In 'g8 an old 
man, who was drawing near to his end and like to die inquired of those around him: 



I 



236 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

" Where did you leave the wind last night ?" (May Eve.) 

They told him it came from the east. 

" Then," he said, " the country is lost to the Clan Gael; our enemies will tri- 
umph. Had it been from the South we should have had victory; but now the 
Sissena^/i (the English) will trample us to dust." He fell back and died. 

Page 79. — " Your Celtic sires from Brtv-ccui/i." 

Breo-cean — " Headland of fire," the place in Spain where the Celts had formed 
a colony, and from which they had set sail on piracy and conquest bent, in their first 
expedition to the rich and peaceful retreat of the far-famed Hyperboreans, — Erin — 
the ancient Ireland. In those days Ireland was also known as Griock ni Fuinead- 
hach, which meant the Asylum of the Expectants, or the Retreat of those Looking 
Forward, — that is, a priestly people meditating and living religiously in anticipation 
of Redemption by Crucifixion, as promised by the primeval tradition. It was this 
tradition that gave us the beautifully carved Tuatha de Danaan (not Celtic) crosses, 
whose remains are found almost everywhere in Ireland. The Christian title of 
" Island of Saints" is only a change from the pagan title of " sacred island," which 
it gained from the religious fame of these early inhabitants. 

Page 83. — " Your Celtic Druids sought," etc. 

The Celtic Druids appropriated the most beautiful portions of the conquered 
Tuatha de Danaans' religious system, and it was this enrichment that made these 
Irish Druids celebrated all over Europe for deep knowledge and beautiful ceremo- 
nials. The Celts, although rude when they broke into the asylum of the refined 
Hyperboreans, still loved learning, and retained the Tuatha de Danaans as masters 
and teachers of their schools and dispensers of justice among the people. The skill- 
ed artificers and stone-carvers were also employed to teach their conquerors, and thus 
Ireland possesses such a large store of ancient remains. 
Page 85. — " And symbolised Creative Power." 

Several writers, with mistaken Christian zeal, have put forth the absurd idea 
that the Round Towers are of Christian origin and were used as belfries to churches. 
They were temples to Budh, and the worshipers went around them from east to west, 
following the course of the sun, just as Sir Edwin Arnold, in the " Light of Asia," 
describes how the pious Sujata, the childless wife who "dwelt with her lord in that still 
Indian home,'' and who had 

" besought 

Lukshmi; and many nights at full moon gone 

Round the great Lingam, nine times nine, with gifts 

Of rice and jasmine wreaths and sandal oil, 

Praying a boy." 



NOTES. 237 

Round Towers and the ruins of early Cliristian churches are found together, be- 
cause in pursuance of the policy of peaceful evangelization, the early Christian 
bishops caused their churches to be built at places to which the people were 
accustomed to resort for worship of their pre-Christian gods. The habit of wor- 
shiping outside of churches as was done around the Tuathan Towers, can still be 
noticed at rural churches in Ireland ; and ttirrisses are still made from east to west. 

Page 87. — " We winnowed pure the soft, sweet air 

That gives your maidens health and grace.'' 
The soft air of Ireland clarified the complexion of a people coming from the 
East ; and magicians then, as they would do now, did not hesitate to attribute the 
change in complexion to their own occult powers. The " Irish complexion" is pro- 
verbial, and is due to the climate and the chastity of the women. 

Pack S7. — " The quivering nostrils of your horse 
We breathed into with living flame.'' 

The horses of the Tuatha de Danaans are famous in ancient legend. Their 
shape and qualities were noble and the priests breathed into their nostrils, conveying 
to them some of the sacred fire, which gave them their high mettle and great speed. 
They have, of course, a legendary origin, which represents them as springing from 
out a lake. The Irish horse is still prominent on the turf throughout Europe, 
and the winner of famous victories. Lady Wilde relates a popular story that the 
last of this great breed of splendid horses belonged to a powerful lord of Connacht, 
on whose death the animal was sold to an emissary of the English government, 
which " wanted to get possession of a specimen of the magnificent Irish breed. But 
when the groom attempted to mount the high-spirited animal, it reared and threw 
the base-born churl violently to the ground, killing him instantly. Then, fleet as the 
wind, the horse galloped off, and finally plunged into the lake and was seen no more. 
So ended the great race of the mighty Tuatha de Danaan horses in Ireland, the like 
of which has never been seen since in all the world for majesty and beaut)." 

The hound was a favorite and highly regarded animal in ancient Erin. There 
is scarcely a legend of the heroic days that has not mention of a hound in it. 
Page 92. — " For I am Don, the priest and chief." 

Don. — There are several of this name in Irish mythology. Don dumbach, — 
of the Sandhills — a powerful Tuatha de Danaan chief, was drowned off the western 
coast, and in accordance with the custom then prevailing, was given a prominent 
position in the land of shades. "Don was held to be a very potent fairy chief, 
and in the last century, Andrew MacCurtin, a poet of the County of Clare, finding 
himself neglected by those who had been kind to him, wrote an address to Don, 
asking his aid." — Standish O' Grady. 



238 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Page 98. — " He was an Orphidge, and loved 
To listen to the songbirds there." 

Orphidge, a disciple of Orpheus, a minstrel. Orphean was the favorite term 
for the harp with the ancient Irish, to whose secluded and sacred land — the home of 
the Hyperboreans — Orpheus accompanied Apollo, choosing to do him, the beautiful 
god, service and sing his glories even in preference to those of the minstre's' favor- 
ite divinity, Bacchus. Apollo slew with his arrow the serpent Python, which was 
the personification of evil; and the ancient Irish Boreadesand Druids used an arrow 
in divination. The evil Python was red, and the Tuatha de Danaans called every- 
thing evil red, such as the Red Wind, and to a red-headed person they ascribed evil 
qualities. In the ruins of an ancient Tuatha de Danaan temple at Knockmoy, 
in the County Galway, transformed in later ages into a Christian abbey, is carved on 
stone a representation of young Apollo s'.aying Python with his sacred arrow. Baker 
describes Orpheus as of Indian origin — " a member of one of those sacred colonies 
which professed the religion of Buddha, and being driven from their homes in the 
northern parts of India, and in the plains of Tartary, by the power of a rival sect of 
Brahma, moved gradually onward to the west, dispensing, in their progress, the ben- 
efits of civilization and the mysterious tenets of their peculiar faith." There seems 
to be no room for doubt that both Apollo and his devoted priest and bard (Orpheus) 
went from Ireland — the sacred island of the Hyperboreans — ' ' set in the wintry seas," 
but with a delightful climate, — when they appeared in ancient Greece. The Phry- 
gians complained that Apollo had wandered from them in company with Cybele, to 
the land of the Hyperboreans, and representations of Cybele are found sculptured 
on the ruins of Tuatha de Danaan temples. Orpheus, we are told, founded the 
sacred mysteries in Greece, and his followers transformed the Dionysiac worship, 
making it ascetic and mystical rather than orgiastic: — that is, they introduced the 
refined, pure and lofty religion of the Tuatha de Danaans, who regarded creative 
power in too reverential and holy a light to be degraded by orgies. Orpheus, if he 
actually lived, was of the Tuatha de Danaan tribe ; if he was only a conception of 
the intellect, he had his birth in their or a kindred religious form. 

Orpheus, we know from the learned Baker, abstained from eating flesh and even 
abhorred the egg, as food, because the ^^^ was the principle of all being. This 
was one of the commandments or laws of the Tuatha de Danaans. "On account 
of the marvelous charm of his song he was engaged as one of the Argonauts," we 
read; and, as we have seen, the Argonauts were of the Tuatha de Danaans who made 
the embassy to Greece, to return a visit and also to see and hear Pythagoras, then 
just returned from the East. This was exactly the time Orpheus flourished and 
he and Pythagoras, holding Tuatha de Danaan doctrines, united, we are told, in their 
efforts and materially changed the religious system of the Greeks. 



NOTES. 239 

Page 107. — " The Crystal Flask was in his hand." 

A crystal flask plays a prominent part in the almost innumerable legends of mortals 
who were borne off to Tir-na-n'og, as in the legend of the Connacht chief who was taken 
away by the great fairy queen, Meav (from whom we derive Shakespeare's Queen 
Mab) and detained in her submarine elysium for several hundred years. At the end 
of that time she gratified his desire to make a visit to earth to see his old friends and 
the familiar fields and hills. Before departing on his earthward journey she gave 
him a Crystal Flask filled with enchanted water. When he had satisfied his longing 
and desired to return to Tir-na-n og he had only to smash the Flask upon a stone. 
Instantly a sea would arise and bear him back to the great fairy queen's dominions. 
When the chief got to earth " the weight of his accumulated years" (w^hich he had 
not before felt) came upon him. He was an old man; all his friends and acquain- 
tances were dead and gone; everything was changed and strange; he was lonely 
and alone in the land over which he had ruled as Chief. He broke the Crystal Flask 
against a rock ; a sea arose and he was soon again in the land of Youth beneath the 
pale-green waves. 

Page 115. — " And I my mystic lore and power 
Would give to you before I die." 
" Some persons even at the present day, among the peasants, have strange gifts 
and a knowledge of the hidden mysteries, but they can only impart this knowledge 
when they know that death is on them, and then it must be a female, to an unmar- 
ried man, or to a childless woman, for these are the most susceptible to the myste- 
rious powers by which miracles must be worked." — Lady Wilde. 

Page 117. — " Would read Caoinai''s scroll of doom." 

The testimony is conclusive that the ancient Irish were familiar with the plan- 
etary system. Astrology, as well as astronomy, was part of their religion. They 
regarded the starry host as the vice regents of Baal and Shamain ; the watchers of 
the night; the messengers of fortune or misfortune to man ; the keepers of the 
records of the universe; the priests, bards and attendants of great Baal, who was 
the luminous representative of the greater Buddha. " I have," says Gen. Valiancy, 
"collected fifty words in the Irish language relatingtoaugury and divination ; every 
3ne of them is Oriental." Regarding the remarkable knowledge of the stars still 
possessed by the Irish peasants — a heritage from the Tuatha de Danaan astrologers 
— he says : — " I had not been a week landed from Gibraltar, where I studied Hebrew 
and Chaldaic, under Jews of various countries and denominations, when I heard a 
peasant girl say to a boor standing beside her, Feach an Maddin nag (Behold the 
morning star), pointing to the planet Venus, the Maddiiia nag oi the Chaldeans." 
On another occasion a peasant, on a fine starry night, who was showing Gen. Val- 



240 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

lancy the way, said, pointing to the constellation Oi-ioii, " that is Caomai, or the 
armed King;" and he described the three upright stars to be his spear or sceptre, and 
the three horizontal stars he said, were his sword belt. " I could not doubt," adds 
the General, "of this being the Cimah of Job, which the learned Costard asserts 
to be the constellation Orioity 

Page iiS. — " With care unrolled her speaking stone." 

Speaking or divination stones, which, as formerly supposed, -announced oracles, 
are still occasionally met with in some parts of Ireland, There is sufficient rever- 
ence entertained for them yet among the people to save them from iconoclastic hands. 
After Christianity had put a stop to the worship of Apollo, and the oracles usually 
attached to his temples were silenced forever, the sibyls — or priestesses of the Pish 
— who still continued to exercise their powers of divination and prophesy, carried 
speaking stones with them, both as a precious relic of their past glories and for use 
when occasion called. These sibyls, as in the case of Evlin, the Caillach Bera, became 
homeless wanderers, whispering prophesies of love and m^riage to the maidens, of 
fruitfulness to the young brides, and good fortune in war or courtship to the men. 
Thus they lived as best they could by the practice of their profession, as the Celtic 
bards and harpers did at a later period. 

Page 124. — " Than the palace of Etain." 

Etain was a celebrated Tuatha de Danaan poetess and princess, mentioned in 
many ancient Mss. as a lady of great prominence and influence in her day. She is 
also the heroine of several romantic legends and was possessed of wonderful beauty 
and noble spirit. One day, when she was but a girl, the King of Munstercame up- 
on her bathing at a fountain. She is described as the most beautiful young princess 
in all Erin, and the old Mss. then goes on to tell of her costume. " A short crim- 
son cloak of a beautiful gloss lay near her. A dualldin (or brooch) of silver, inlaid 
with sparkles of gold, was in her cloak. • A smock, long and warm, gathered and 
soft, of green silk, with a border of red gold, was upon her. Wonderful clasps of 
gold and silver shone at her bosom, shoulder blades and shoulders. The sun shone 
upon her and the King and his retinue were all shaded in red from the reflection of 
the gold on the rim of her dress against ihe green silk. The color of her hair was like 
flowers of the bog fir in the summer. The King addressed her as " Beautiful Fair- 
haired Lady." He fell desperately in love with her and she became his queen. The 
fame of her beauty spread throughout the land. A powerful chief and king, Midar 
by name, disguised himself as a waadcring bard, and thus got access to the court 
of the King. The pretended bard challenged the King to a game of chess, the con- 
queror to name the reward. The stranger won and demanded the beautiful Etain. 
The King had to submit to maintain his honor ; but put off the day for surrender- 



NOTES. 241 

ing his beautiful queen for a twelvemonth. On the day appointed the King sur- 
rounded his castle with warriors and gave orders that no stranger should enter on 
pain of death. So all being secure, as he thought, he took his place at the feast, 
with the beautiful Etain beside him, all glittering with jewels and a golden crown on 
her head, and the revelry went on till midnight. Just then, to his horror, the King 
beheld, standing in the middle of the hall, the stranger ; but no one else seemed to 
perceive the unbidden guest. The stranger fixed his eyes on the queen, and advanc- 
ing towards her, struck the golden harp he had in his hand and sang in a low sweet 
voice : — 

" O Etain, wilt thou come with me 

To a wonderful palace that is mine ? 

White are the teeth there, and black the brows. 

And crimson as the mead are the lips of the lovers. 

" Woman, if thou comest to my proud people 

'Tis a golden crown shall circle thy head. 

Thou shalt dwell by the sweet streams of my land 

And drink of the mead and wine in the arms of thy lover." 

And he gently put his arms around the queen's waist and drew her up from her 
royal throne and went forth with her through the midst of all the guests, none hav- 
ing power to hinder, and the King himself, like one in a dream, could neither speak 
nor move. But when he recovered himself, he knew that the stranger was one of 
the fairy chiefs of the Tuatha de Danaans who had carried off the fair Etain to his 
mansions of joy. So he sent round word to all the kings of Erin that they should 
destroy all the forts of the Danaan race, and slay and kill and allow none to live 
until his young bride was brought back to him. But she came not. Then the king 
out of revenge ordered his men to block up all the stables where the royal horses of 
the Danaans were kept, so they might die of hunger. But the horses were of noble 
blood and no bars or bolts could hold them, and so they broke through the bars and 
rushed out like the whirlwind and spread all over the country. And the kings when 
they saw the beauty of the horses, forgot all about the search for Queen Etain and 
only strove how they could seize and hold as their own some of the fiery steeds 
with the silver hoofs and golden bridles. Then the king raged in his wrath and 
sent for his chief Druid, who by carving four oghams on a hazel tree had it revealed 
to him that deep down in a hill in the very center of Ireland Queen Etain was hidden 
away in the enchanted palace of Midar, the fairy chief. Then the King gathered a 
great army and they circled the hill to dig down to the enchanted palace. As the 
diggers reached the gate, Midar sent forth fifty beautiful women, to distract the at- 
tention of the warriors and deceive the King, for all the women were exactly like 



242 THE l^ORROWED liRIDE. 

his queen in form and feature. But Etain, when she saw her husband so near her, 
was touched by love of him in her heart, and the power of enchantment fell from 
her soul and she came to him and he lifted her up on his horse and kissed her tenderly 
and brought her back safely to his palace where they lived happily ever after. — 
Ancient Legends of Ireland. 

No stronger, more beautiful or striking picture of the conquering power of 
woman's love can be found in any literature. So strong was her love that it con- 
quered even the powers of enchantment, and the spell fell from her soul! 

Another legend tells how she caused her husband to gain a great victory over 
his foes, " for the strength of inspiration was in her, the power of the spirit of life 
which is given to the poet and the prophet, by which they inspire and guide the hearts 
of men." 

Page 127. — " And your symbol of salvation is with the sign of death." 

All the pagan symbols had a double meaning — an inside or secret one for the 
cult, and an outside or common one for the people. In the Buddhist religious tradi- 
tions there had been several crucifixions before the Christian era. There was no 
resurrection accompanying these Buddhist crucifixions, and hence the outward sign 
of the cross was death. Carvings of these crucifixions are to be found in Ireland 
on almost all the remains of the Tuatha de Danaan temples; and on account of this, 
some writers, with more zeal than discretion or justice, attribute all these ruins to 
Christian origin, implying that Ireland was barren of arts and architecture until 
Christianity introduced them. Why, there were temples of worship in "the sacred 
island of the west" — ancient Hiberriia, or Hyperborea —three thousand years ago. 

Page 134. — " When his clansmen held the tailten." 

Long before the Christian era the fair of Tailten was instituted by Tailten, 
daughter of Magh Mor, and wife of Eochaidh Garbh, son of Duach Temin. She 
was a notably great queen and was always thinking of the good and comfort of her 
people. She requested her husband to cut down Caill Cuain (" tall and stately were 
its trees") that it should be an oenach (a fair or assembly ground) around her laecht 
(grave) and she died on the kalands of August after that, andher^«/'(? (lamentations 
and weeping for her) and her nosad (games so common in pagan times as funeral 
rites) were celebrated becomingly. This was the origin of the great annual national 
fair which lasted fifteen days before and fifteen days after the ist of August. It 
was also a great marriage market, to which weddable young women, accompanied 
by their parents, resorted in search of husbands. Military exercises, games and 
sports of all kinds kept up the interest for the whole month. This fair is said to 
have been instituted in the year 3,500 A.M., and was kept up for four hundred years 
after St. Patrick. The August fairs, called Lammas fairs, in the various Irish towns, 



NOTES. 243 

are still the largest and most important of the year, in memory of the national lailten. 
The Greeks took their Olympian games from the Irish Tailtm. 

Page 134. — On the Mecn-a-Goban plain." 

Meeti-a' -Gobbatt — meadow of the men, or plain where the clansmen assembled 
yearly for athletic exercises and military practice. The place where the men of 
Boglagh assembled some two or three thousand years ago is still called Meen-a- 
Gobban. 

Page 134— " And the Olavs sat in state." 

There were no idiots or lunatics, cripples or hunchbacks, among the reigning 
royalty of ancient Ireland. No law was more binding or more respected than the 
one that no person, afflicted with mental or physical deformity, or the loss of any 
member, could become king or chief, dynast or tanist. This law existed down to the 
English invasion and as long after as an Irish chief was able to maintain his position 
and independence. In it is seen another relic of the admirable code of the Tuatha 
de Danaans, who, regarding a ruling chief, or king, as representing the Great Father 
and Ruler of creation, held that it would be an insult to their perfect God to allow 
any man, except a perfect one, to assume the sacred duties of Ceann, or Head, who 
was chosen as much for his handsome appearance as for his chivalrous qualities — 
another illustration of the Irish admiration for the beautiful. 

Page 137. — 

" Where Gartan Lough lies calm and still 

Within the mountain's shade, 
A holy priest — young Columb blest — 
His home and shrine had made." 
Gartan Lough, a beautiful sheet of water, charmingly wooded on one side and 
with a mountain barrier towering fifteen hundred feet in height on the other, as if to 
protect the sacred spot, is situated in the very heart of the Donegal Highland and is 
in harmony with the characteristic scenery of that picturesque county. The lough is 
about two miles long and is pleasantly interspersed with a few islands, as is its neigh- 
bor, the deep-valleyed Lough Veagh. It is a secluded spot, most fitting for a sanc- 
tuary, and seems to possess a subtle influence that calms to repose and leads to med- 
itation. This feeling is increased by the Alp-like tops of Errigal, Muckish and 
Dooish mountains lifting their forms like enchanted guardians in the blue distance. 
Here, on the wooded promontory that breaks the monotony of a straight 
line on the western bank, was born one of the most eminent saints in the whole Chris- 
tian calendar - Columbkille, the " Dove of the Churches;" so called because of the 
many churches he had built and the wonderful success of his holy mission both in 
Ireland and in Scotland, where, from the lonely island of lona, or I Columbkille, 



244 TTHE BORROWEI) BRTDE. 

he shed the light of Christianity over all north Britain. He was born December 7th, 
521, and was baptized at the church of Tulachduhhglaisse by a holy priest named 
Crothnican. He died at his own monastery cf Hy, on lona, Scotland, June 9th, 
597. aged 76 years, and was buried there ; but his remains were subsequently removed 
to Downpatrick and buried in the same grave with those of St. Patrick and St. 
Bridget. One of the hundreds of legends which still exist regarding this good man 
and great missionary is that his great love for his native land and desire to have his 
remains rest there was such that his coffin, shortly after his death, was discovered one 
morning on the shores of Antrim, having got out of the grave and crossed the chan- 
nel in some mysterious way, which of course was attributed to divine agency. There 
is scarcely a mountain, lake or river in Donegal that is not yet made interesting by 
a legend of this truly great man. 

Page 141.^" And sing the ^//«j-hymn." 

" The Ahus Prosator — the High Father, or Bringer-Forth — was composed by 
St. Columbkille himself. It is a remarkable hymn, still extant in a translation by 
the Rev. Dr. Todd, versified by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Mcllwain, Episcopalian Bishop, 
and published in the Lyra Hihernica Sacra. It begins with a luminous and striking 
description of the Creation, " made all by one act of the Godhead;'' tells of the 
temptation of both our first parents, from whose fate ' " well may frail man, too, 
fear;" points out God's goodness and omnipotence in the operations of nature, so that 
" to no man seemeth it doubtful;" pictures hell in powerful language and striking 
metaphor; tells of Paradise 

" From whose gushing fountain head four rivers are flowing, 
And in whose flowery midst is placed the Tree of Life, 
Those leaves, bringing health to the Gentiles, fail not forever. 
Unspeakable are whose joys, and also abundant." 
This is followed by a picture of the Day of Judgment, as powerful and sub- 
lime as any passage in Milton's Paradise Lost or Dante's Inferno. 

To the singing of this hymn were attributed great powers of restoration from 
sickness, chiefly that inflicted by evil spells, and the redemption of sinners' souls 
from impending damnation. Many legends giving instances of the actual manifes- 
tation of these powers are still current. 

Page 141. — " Blest water from the holy well." 

The ancient Irish brought well sanctification with them from the East, fire and 
water being the two chief sacred elements; and the early Christian missionaries, in 
pursuance of their general policy of adopting all that was good and giving it a new 
religious meaning, blessed the wells, which thus continued to be objects of rever- 
ence and devotion. See note to Dooan. 



NOTES. 245 

Page 143. — "And to St. Patrick's holy isle." 

" St. Patrick's Purgatory" is one of the most celebrated as it is certainly the most 
ancient Catholic shrine in Europe, dating- back to the days of St. Patrick himself. It 
is situated in Lough Derg, or Darrag,3.s the native people call it— a picturesque 
sheet of water, set in a lonely mountainous region in the southwest of the county 
Donegal. I believe the remarks previously made in these notes concerning Lough 
Derg, or Darrag, the lower lake of the Shannon is applicable to this lough in point of 
origin; that is, that it got its name originally from Durga, the divinity of the Ganges, 
the early colonizers of Erin bringing their deities with them and locating them near 
at hand. Historical research into the dim past will show that Donegal was a favorite 
place for the great Tuatha de Danaan people. One of the battles in which their 
dynasty was overthrown was fought near Lough Swilly, in that country. St. Patrick, 
no doubt found Lough Darrag an eminent pagan shrine, dedicated to Durga, and in 
pursuance of his peaceful pohcy, he baptised and made it Christian. The primi- 
tive inhabitants in Donegal do not speak of baptising a child, but of making a 
Christian of him -a form of expression evidently carried down from the days St. 
Patrick made Christians of the pagan chieftains. 

Caesarius, who lived about A. D. 500, had even at so early a date heard of the fa- 
mous Purgatory, for he writes " whoever doubts that there is such a place as Purgatory 
let him go to Scotia (the old Celtic name of Ireland) and there he may visit the Pur- 
gatory of St. Patrick." In the year 1328, Ramon, Baron of Leita, made a pilgrim- 
age here of which an amusing account is given in the " Historia Cathollca." The 
Annals of Ulster say that in 1407, the Pope ordered it closed up as " a filthy nest 
of superstition and evil deeds." The people had got back to the old worship of 
their pagan ancestors. But it was restored to Christian devotion again soon after- 
wards. In 1632, the English government, in the days of confiscation of Irish estates 
and church lands, seized the islands in the lake and destroyed the relics, including 
St. Patrick's bed and the stone slab on which he knelt. James II. removed the pro- 
hibition and the lake and its islands have been the resort of devotees and pilgrim 
sinners ever since, as many as 20,000 visiting the purgatory in a season, which opens 
June 1st and closes August 15th. The lake is about ten miles in circumference and 
has three islands, on one of which — the Holy or Station Island — the religious ser- 
vices are held and penances performed. 

Page 143.— "Within Baal Pharagh lake." 

The Baal Pharagh of the ancient Irish was the Baal Poer of the Scriptures or 
the Belli Paaro " whose ceremony is still practiced," we are told, "on the coast of 
Guinea, and which neither the blandishments of artifice nor the terrors of menace 
could ever prevail upon them to divulge. The meaning they assign to it is regener- 



246 THE BORROWED I'.RIDE. 

ation, or the act of reviving from death to a new state of existence." Some mod- 
ern writers, through ignorance or want of comprehension, look upon this worship 
with real or assumed horror. It should be regarded in a fuller light. Things that 
are invested with solemn religious sanctity are not likely to be abused or degraded. 
Remove the sanctity and abuse and degradation will follow. To the influence of 
this early worship among the Irish and the chastity it inculcated down through tra- 
dition, is, I think attributable the peerless virtue, in a sexual sense, of the Irish 
peasantry. Even in Christian times Pharragh was used as a battle cry by some 
chiefs. 

Page 149. — "His Cobban Saer he caused to build." 

Cobban Saer (pronounced Gubawn Seer') the free builder or constructor, was the 
great traditional architect of ancient Ireland, and he is given credit for constructing 
all the great Cyclopean stone works and castles whose ruins still strew the shores of 
the oceans of centuries that have swept over aged Erin. Among inventions of his 
which have come down through tradition is the pegless or nailless bridge, claimed 
by some people for Julius Caesar, and a method of flat roofing a round cabin by 
means of three joists, each of which was only three-quarters of the breadth across. 
The legends of his performances and adventures exceed anything to be found in the 
gestic literature of any other people. 

Page 149. — " Which a.s A'ill-Turris now is known." 

Kill Tiirris — the church of the tower or turris. The devotional or penitential 
act of "doing a fiirris", namely, going around a certain circuit a certain number of times 
and saying a certain number of prayers — is still practiced. It is a Christianized relic 
of the Tuatha de Danaan ritual, as practiced at the Round Towers. Let the zeal- 
ous Christian remember that Christ came not to make a new word and a new race of 
men; but to reform and purify them and bring them back to the worship of the one 
God. On an island in this lake are ecclesiastical looking ruins, said to be from a 
church erected by a bishop O'Boyle, of which name there were many in old times. 
The territory of Boylagh teems with very ancient pagan remains. The name itself, 
Baal-ath — Ford of Baal, tells of its remote inhabitants. And within a mile or so of 
Killturris Lough is Lough Berith {Baal Berith — Lord of the Covenant — the Sacred 
Mysteries) and within a veryshort distance of this is Lough Doon {Luan — the Moon). 
This locality was evidently a center of worship — a sacred region — in pre-Christian 
times. 

Page 151. — " These very storks you see around." 

The stork was reverenced in ancient Ireland as the sacred Ibis was in the East, 
because, no doubt, of its resemblance to that honored bird whose advent caused the 



NOTES. 247 

rivers to overflow and fruitfulness to follow. The legend of Columbkille and the 
storks that flew after him from Gartan Lough to lona is told in numberless Mss. and 
books reciting the life of that extraordinary man. A modern writer tells how, far 
away on the waters of the Northern sea, in lona, out of sight of that Erin which in 
exile he might not look upon, Columba's heart burned with a love of Ireland. A 
prince of the royal line of Nial of the Hostages and a probable candidate for the 
position of Ard Righ, he had early devoted himself to the priesthood. Princely 
bearing, a bold and impetuous temper, a lofty and aggressive scorn of injustice char- 
acterized his early life. He was preeminently the man of his age. In character 
he stands alone, rising high o'er the sea of men as tower the cliffs of lona o'er the 
waters of the Western sea. Early indiscretion, the outcome of his impetuosity, and 
his stern denouncement of injustice, led to his accepting a voluntary exile in lona. 
Even here the fame of his sanctity drew numerous votaries round his monastery and 
strengthened by his increasing followers, he undertook and accomplished the gigan- 
tic task of converting the Picts. These redoubtable warriors who, step by step, 
contested the supremacy of Britain with the Romans, who swept unceasingly past 
the artificial barriers of the Emperors, and whom the genius of Agricola conquered, 
but could not subdue, gave way at the eloquence of Columba, and received at his 
hands the precepts of eternal life. Yet through all the years of his exile was he a 
conspicuous example of the homesick bard. His passionate tenderness for the land 
of his love breathes through his poems that have come down to us. " Death," he 
says, " in faultless Erin would be better than life without end in Albyn." And again 
"What joy to fly upon the white crested sea and watch the waves break upon the 
shore! What joy to row the little bark and land upon the whitening foam upon the 
Irish shore. Ah! how, my boat would fly if its prow were turned to my Irish oak 
grove. There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erin, but nev'er in this life shall it 
see Erin nor her sons nor her daughters. From the high prow I look over the sea, 
and great tears are in my gray eye when I turn to Erin, to Erin where the song of 
the birds is so sweet, and where the larks sing like the birds, where the young are so 
gentle and the old so wise, and the great men so noble to look at. Young traveler, 
carry my sorrows with thee; carry them to Congall of eternal life; carry my blessing 
o'er the sea; carry it to the West. My heart is broken in my breast; if death come 
to me suddenly, it will be because of the great love I bear the Gael." 

In response to one of these songs of melancholy and exile, three storks which 
were his pets at Gartan, actuated by some mysterious impulse, took wing on a stormy 
winter night and at daylight in the morning fell exhausted on the shore of lona. 
Columb had dreamt that night that the storks would come and before daybreak told 
a monk to go out and watch for them; bring them into shelter, and feed and care 
for them. The monk went out and found them as the Abbott had said he would. 



248 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

But out of pity, knowing the sorrows of exile, Columb himself, after the birds had 
fed and rested, lifted them up and told them to return to their native land. They 
flew back to Gartan. When dying Columb called the monk who had found and fed 
the storks, and said " God bless thee, my dear child; thou hast cared for the exile." 
St. Columbkille should be a great favorite with the millions of Irish exiles, for he 
has sung the exiles' sorrows more sweetly, tenderly and heartfelt than any other bard 
has ever done. 

Page 155. — "A Lajiaii Shie beckons the mortal apart." 

The Leanhaun Shie, or fairy mistress, is said to be one of the solitary fairies 
that have duties and inclinations apart from the fairy host, who are idle merry mak- 
ers. If she falls in love with a mortal she must be his slave. If he falls in love 
with her he becomes her slave, but at the same time becomes an inspired bard, for 
the Leanhaun Shie is the Celtic muse of fairy mythology and gives inspiration to him 
whom she enslaves. Shfe feeds on his life, and thus it is that Celtic poets die young, 
for she is restless and will not allow her lover to remain long on earth, wishing to have 
him with her in spirit — in the beautiful and poetic Tir na nos;. She is also a good 
fairy that loves to do kind acts to mortals generally, especially where love is concerned, 
as in the case of O'Boyle. 

Page 177. — " Formed the gallant cavalcade." 

Ancient Irish Mss. are filled with descriptions of cavalcades. There were no 
safe deposit vaults, stocks, bonds or mortgages for men to put their wealth into in 
those days, and hence it was spent on outward display. A great Tuatha de Danaan 
chief, Bodhbh Derg, of Slieve na m Ban in modern Tipperary, went to visit his 
cousin Ochall Oichne, the great chief of the ancrent hill of Cruachan, afterwards the 
royal residence of the Kings of Connacht. The clans of Connacht held a great 
meeting at Lough Rea (Lake of the Moon) to receive him. Here is the description 
of his cavalcade as given by Prof. O'Curry, in his " Mss. Material of Ancient Irish 
History:" " Seven score chariots and seven score horsemen was their number. And 
of the same color were all their steeds; they were speckled; they had silver bridles. 
There was no person among them who was not the son of a king or queen. They all 
wore green cloaks with four crimson heo, or pendants, to each cloak; and silver cloak 
brooches {Broth Gha) were in all their cloaks and they wore kilts with red interweav- 
ings and borders of fringe of gold upon them and pendants of white bronze thread 
upon their leggings or grieves (Ochrath), and shoes with clasps (Indioil^ of red bronze 
on them. Their helmets were ornamented with crj'stal and white bronze; each of 
them had a collar (Niamh-Land) of radiant gold around his neck with a gem worth 
a newly calved cow set in it. Each wore a twisted ring of gold around him worth 
thirty ounces of gold. All had white-faced shields with ornamentations of gold and of 



NOTES. 249 

silver. They carried tlesli-seeking spears witti ribs of gold and silver and red bronze 
in their sides; and with collars (or rings) of silver upon the necks of the spears. 
They had gold-hilted swords, with the forms of serpents of gold, and carbuncles 
were set in them. They astonished the whole assemblage by their display." 

Another cavalcade — "Three-score bridle steeds and threescore chariots. All 
the steeds were black and so glossy that one would think the sea had cast them up. 
They had bridle bits ot gold. The men wore black grey cloaks with crimson loops, 
a wheel brooch (Roth) of gold at the breast of each man of them. Kilts of perfect 
whiteness, with crimson stripes down the sides upon them. Black hair upon every 
man of them, and so sleek that you would think that a cow had licked them 
all. They carried shields with emblematic carvings and sharp scolloped reins of 
J^lndrttine at their shoulders; ivory set swords at their sides, inlaid with figures of 
bronze. A pointless spear in the hand of each man of them with rivets of silver. 
Fifty coils (Forrodita) of burnished gold around each man." 

Description of a chariot — " Withe wickered; two bright bronze wheels; a white 
pole of bright silver with a veiningof findruini, a very high creaking crete, or body, 
having its firm, sloping sides ornamented with silver; a back-arched, rich, golden 
yoke; two rich, yellow-peaked Alls; hardened wood straight spindles; two symmet- 
rical five-spoked wheels; two pliant, beautiful reins; a pole of bright silver with 
veinings of jindruuii; a purple awning or roof and green hangings." Another 
chariot is described as having an awning of birds' wings and feathers and decorated 
with stuffed birds. 

Description of Midar who appeared to Etain, the poet princess, while taking her 
bath at the fountain — ' ' He had under him a curveting, prancing, broad-rumped, curly- 
maned, curly haired, bay steed. A long, flowing, green cloak gathered around him 
over a shirt interwoven with threads of red gold. A brooch of gold in his cloak across 
which it reached to his shoulders at either side. He had a shield of silver with a 
rim of gold at his back and with trappings of silver and a boss of gold. He had in 
his hand a sharp-pointed spear covered with rings of gold bronze from its socket to 
its heel. He wore fine yellow hair combed from his forehead and his forehead was 
bound with a fillet of gold to keep his hair from disorder." 

Another prince is described as wearing " a crimson five-folding cloak, a shield 
with a rim of gold at his back, gold-hilted sword at his girdle; two grey hounds 
with silver chains held in his right hand, a chessboard with men of gold and silver, 
a bronze Timpan, or harp, and his servants were in tunics of yellow silk." 

Description of a lady: "She had on her feet two pointless shoes of white 
bronze ornamented with two gems of precious stones; her kilt was interwoven with 
thread of gold; she wore a crimson robe and a brooch of gold, fully chased and be- 
set with many-colored gems, in that robe. She had a necklace of burnished gold 



250 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

around her neck and a diadem of gold on her head. She drove two black-grey 
steeds at her chariot with two golden bridles, and the yoke of the horses had trap- 
pings of silver." Another fair princess of the olden days " wore a necklace of bur- 
nished gold; brooches of gold with full carvings, bespangled with gems of many 
colors." 

It must not be supposed that these descriptions are exaggerated, for the ancient 
Irish bards were historians and were pledged to tell the truth. King Alfred, of 
Northumberland, who had to go to Ireland for his education, England or Britain 
then possessing no educational facilities fitting for a prince, wrote a metrical de- 
scription of Ireland, in which he sings: — 

" I found in fair Inisfail, 

In Ireland, while in exile. 

Many women, no silly crowd; 

Many laics, many clinics. 

I found strict morals in age and youth, 

I found historians recording truth. 

****** 

Much of food, much of raiment; 

I found gold and silver; 

I found honey and wheat; 

I found affection with the people of God; 

I found banquets and cities. 

I found in Connacht, famed for justice, 
Affluence; milk in full abundance; 
Hospitality, lasting vigor, fame. 
In the territory of Croghan of heroes. 

I found in the Country of Connal, 

[Tyr-Connal. County Donegal.] 
Fierce men of pale complexions; 
The high stars of Ireland 
I found in the territory of O" Boyle. 

[Mss. defaced.] 
Brehons, Erenachs, palaces. 
Good military weapons, active horsemen." 
He also found sweet fruit, strict headquarters, men of truth, chess playing, 
bravery, purity and mirth; valor, hospitality, hardihood and traffic; kings, queens 
and royal bards, in " every species of poetry well skilled." 



NOTES. 251 

Page 178. — " While each cloak in five hues folding." 

This term "in five hues folding" means of five colors. The custom of dis- 
tinguishing the rank of the subject by the different colors of dress was instituted in 
Ireland by King Tighearnmas, who reigned from the age of the world 3580 until 
3657. The garment of a slave could have only one color; a peasant two, a soldier 
three, a brugliaidh, or public victualer, four; a chieftain of a territory, great warrior, 
or champion, five; the Olavs six, and kings and queens seven. This monarch also 
began the smelting of gold and first made goblets and brooches covered with gold 
and silver. In his reign was also discovered the herbs, etc. that would dye purple, 
blue and green. According to the annals he had a long and prosperous reign, fight- 
ing battles, clearing plains, seeking inventions and discoveries for the good of his 
people and he died with 314 of the men of Ireland about him at Magh Sleacht 
(Camp of Adoration) on a plain in Cavan, worshipping at Crom Cruach, the snake 
god's temple, on the night of Shamain (All Hallow Eve). So much beloved was 
he that the people would have no king for seven years. 

Page 179. — " Kilts with red gold interweavings." 

The kilt, or pJiilibeg, was not a Celtic, but a de Danaan habiliment, and to- 
gether with the Round Towers, as temples of worship, must have been brought from 
the East, for to this style of dress and the high doors in the Towers, only could the 
Lord have referred when he said " Neither shall thou go up by steps unto mine altar, 
that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon." The de Danaans brought the kilt 
to Scotland when they were overthrown in Ireland and started on that long journey, 
or wandering, which finally brought them to this continent about 1000 B. C. 

Page 180. — " Decked with birds of brightest plumage. 
From the great, wide western main." 
The cliffs of the northwest coast of Ireland are still frequented by most of the 
birds mentioned; and so thick have I seen birds perch that a couple of double-barrelled 
guns, fired from a boat underneath the cliffs around Horn Head, would bring down 
almost a boat load of them. 

Page 184. — " Pressed the mind oi gold and jewels." 

The mind was a golden head-dress, made somewhat in the shape of a modern 
"sailor hat," with a brim narrow in front and sides but spreading out behind, fan- 
tail fashion. Minds have been dug up from Irish soil, and some of them as described 
by Dr. Petrie, the eminent archaeologist, must have lent a queenly air to a shapely 
young female head. 

Page 186. — " Teeth like pearl from the Lannan." 

The Lannan is the name of a river, rising in the Donegal Highlands, on the 



252 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

borders of Boylagh, and widely celebrated for its pearls as well as its salmon. Some 
years ago Mr. Dombraine, the owner of a white marble quarry in the Rosses, bought 
from a boy for a few shillings a pearl of great size and beauty, found in this river. 
London jewelers considered it of value enough to spend 150 guineas in having it set 
with suitable gems. A recent writer says: " The County Donegal is rich not only 
in mines and minerals, but its rivers abound in pearl mussels. Large, round and 
lustrous pearls ha^"e been taken out of its streams equal to any found in the Straits of 
Minar, in South India." Underneath the bleak and barren-looking surface, in the 
Rosses, is a bed covering from twenty to thirty acres of nothing but white marble, 
equal to the Parian of which the Greek temples were composed, and which could be 
raised in blocks of any size. 

Page 187. — "Wind they past Kilclooney Cromlach.'" 

Cromlachs — the stone altars of Crom — are found almost everywhere in Ireland, 
Boylagh being exceptionally rich in pagan remains, had several; the most dis- 
tinct now is at Kilclooney, a short distance from the Loughs Kill-Turris, Berith and 
Luan, already referred to. The Kilclooney cromlach consists of upright slabs of 
stone on which is laid a gigantic slab sloping with an incline towards the west, and 
measuring eighteen feet from east to west and twenty from north to south. Close to it 
is another slab of about one-third its size. Both are enclosed in a stone circle. The 
people of the locality call this snake god's altar by the name of the Beds of Diarmud 
and Grainne, whose romantic elopement and efforts at escape from the jealous wrath 
of Fin McCool is the most popular national romance of ancient Ireland. It is 
supposed that the lovers in their flight came here and the slabs are said to have been 
their bed. No doubt this legend was encouraged to help obliterate the memory and 
tradition of the Gad-cl-glas, the green snake god. And this suggests the explana- 
tion that the snakes which St. Patrick banished from Ireland were the snakes carved 
on the temples of worship in pre-Christian times, not the living reptiles we know 
as snakes; none were ever in Ireland Its volcanic origin has left sulphurous gases 
in its soil that are not wholesome for the snake, and the snake knows what is good 
to keep away from. However, after all, we see that St. Patrick really did banish 
the "snakes" from Ireland. 

The legend of Diartiiud ami Grainne a.n6. the classic story of Fentis and Adonis 
are evidently of a single origin; and, from the established facts that Greece got her 
oracles from "priestesses of the Hyperboreans" (the Irish, or Hibernian, Tuatha 
de Danaans) and that men of the same people, visiting Greece to keep up ' ' the ancient 
league of friendship with the Dallians," or inhabitants of Delos, helped to purify 
the Greek pagan system of worship, it seems more likely that the cyclic poet, Pany- 
asis, enriched Greek mythological romance by " adopting" the Irish legend than that 



NOTES. 253 

the Irish appropriated the Greek concoction. The lady-love in one case was the 
goddess Venus and in the other she is called Grainne, answering to a Tuatha de Dan- 
aan divinity. The Irish hero is Diarmud (meaning Oak Sapling; sometimes Diar- 
mud na ?/i ban — the Oak Sapling of the White woman, answering to the branch of 
Juno in Cuthite mythology) was, as the old legend tells, " the grandson of Duibhne, 
the white-toothed of the lightsome countenance; that is, the best lover of women and 
of maidens that is in the whole world,''* while the Greek hero, Adonis, was " rosy- 
cheeked," 

" The fields' chief flower, sweet above compare, 
Stain of all nymphs, more lovely than a man, 
More white and red than doves and roses are." 

In both cases the woman did the love-making; but while Venus' love was a guilty 
one, she being already a wife, Grainne sought Diarmud through the nobler and 
double motive of pure love and to escape marriage with ' ' a man older than her 
father." To Diarmud she explained " I was at that time [the occasion of a great 
contest among champions] in my Grainnan [sunny house or bower] of clear view, 
of blue windows of glass, gazing upon thee; and I turned the light of mine eyes and 
of my sight upon thee that day, and I never gave that love to any other from that 
time to this, and will not forever.''f Panyasis, with the lubricity of the Greek, 
deeply injured the purity and beauty of the romance by giving Adonis an incestuous 
birth and making Venus' love a sensual passion. Finally Diarmud and Adonis are 
each killed by a wild boar, which they, against warning, persisted in hunting, and 
the lamentations over their death are similar. 

Page 188. — " Til the Dysard, with its hospice." 

This is a beautiful mountain dell, with the ruins of an old church still to be seen, 
" There are upwards of twenty ecclesiastical foundations in Ireland bearing the name 
of Disart, Dysart, or Desart, which I interpret Di-Es-ArJ, the High Place of the 
god Ees. Ees denoted light and fire, and hence Dysard was one of the temples 
of the sun": — (Dr. Marcus Kane.) As has been said, the early Christian mission- 
aries built their churches at places where the people had been in the habit of wor- 
shipping and which they considered sacred. The early Irish monks also provided 
refreshment for travelers free, and knowing human nature, always filled a hungry 
pagan's stomach before they began to tell him of the goodness of the new and true 
God. The Brtigkaidh, or public hospitaller, was a man of honor in ancient Ireland, 
ranking next to the chieftain of a territory. 

*The Pursuit of Diarmud and Grainne, with literal translation, published by the Society for the 
Preservation of the Irish language. +The same. 



254 THE BORROWED BRIDE. 

Page i88. — "Well the ancient Culdees knew." 

The Culdees were converts from paganism, and had been pious and priestly men 
who worshipped only one God. thus having kept pure the early traditions of their 
" sacred island," before they were enlightened by Christianity. Their fame for sanc- 
tity was very great and they were deeply beloved and reverenced by the people, to 
whom they were, indeed, fathers, counsellors and friends, filled with glowing love 
for all God's creatures and lightening the burdens of life as well as spiritually guid- 
ing their people. From these times the Irish inherit their love for the Soggart 
Aroon. This also explains the origin of the influence which the Catholic priests hold 
over their flocks, for the Irish have longer memories and more lasting gratitude than 
perhaps any other people. The Irishman is not fickle; he is volatile in his demeanor; 
but beneath is a stability of purpose and of friendship as solid as the eternal rocks. 

Page 189. — " And the honey-brewed Methaglin." 

This was a very ancient Irish drink, brewed from honey with aromatic plants. 
It means — Aled-ech-lin, honey beverage. New Jersey cannot claim the honor of in- 
venting the apple jack, for the Irish drank it out of deep horns three thousand years 
ago. Crab apple trees, of apparently antediluvian age, are yet seen all over that 
land. In the life of Prince Cano, self-exiled from Scotland in the dim past to es- 
cape hostilities, there is a poem in praise of the various celebrated ales and bever- 
ages of Ireland. It tells how 

" In Cuil Fola of shining goblets, 
Drum Lethan of good cheer, 
An ale-feast is given to the Lagenians 
When the summer foliage withers. 
About the lands of the Cruthri, about Gergin, 
' Red ales like wine are freely drank." 

This was the old feast of Ceres, the Irish Hallow-Eve, the American Thanks- 
giving Day. 

Page 189. — "And the milk of snow white kine." 

The milk of the white cow was supposed to possess special virtues, in memory, 
no doubt, of the Bo-Finn, the legend of which has already been given in these 
notes. Kennedy, in his " Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts," tells the fanciful 
story of "The Bath of the White Cows." In the piratical days of old an expedi- 
tion of Welshmen, filling many cm racks, made a descent on Ireland and steered up 
the Slaney river, on whose banks they landed. Here a great battle was fought with 
the Irish chieftain who ruled over that territory. The young husband of one of the 
Irish Chief's daughters was slain by an arrow-head that had been poisoned. The 
wife fell on the dead body in a swoon and the beard of the arrow scratched her white 



NOTES. ' 255 

vvrist. The pain went to her heart and roused her from her faint. The purple 
rapidly spreading around the mark indicated that she had but a short time to live. 
A Druid filled a large vessel with the milk of white cows and water from the Slaney ; 
placed the dying princess in it, and in a few minutes the pain was gone and she was 
out of danger. A similar bath was prepared for the Irish warriors who were wounded 
and they all recovered. The Welshmen were killed to a man, and the river Slaney 
got its name from Slaint/w, which means health. 

Page i8g. — " Now the chessboard, ever present." 

Chess was the royal game of ancient Ireland and was brought by the de Dan- 
aans from their Indian home, the name being a corruption of the title Sheikh, 
meaning chief or king. It was the game of the Sheikh, or Shah, or Khan or 
finally, the Irish Ceann. In old Irish legends the game is mentioned frequently, 
and the files, or rhyming annalists, have described as among the rich possessions of 
their chiefs, chessboards of ivory and chessmen of solid gold. Chiefs when trav- 
eling always carried their chess apparatus with them, for mental recreation, or to be 
ready to play a game for a princely prize with any other chief who might challenge 
them. 

Page 190. — "Of the castle /)««-««- G^rt?/." 

Dun — a fort; na — of; Gael — noble and also stranger — the Fort of the Noble 
Stranger. This was evidently one of the first strongholds of the Celts in Ireland, 
and judging by the accounts of the many battles fought in the surrounding country 
the territory would seem to have been presided over by Ned in person. Ned was 
the pagan Irish god of war, and in no part of Ireland are the people readier to " raise 
Old Ned " at any time in a good cause — patriotic as well as good — than in 
Donegal. The castle, whose ruins are shown in one of the illustrations, was mod- 
ernized by the Scotchmen who in 1601, "by royal grant," came into possession of 
the confiscated estates of the O'Donnels, lords of Tyr-Conel, or the land of Cona' 
Gulban, one of the most celebrated of the ancient Irish heroes. The famou 
abbey Assaroe is within the borders of the town of Donegal, a few miles di' 
the ruins of Kilbarron Castle, where the Annals of the Four Masters, 
historical work of ancient Ireland, were compiled by Donegal monk'" 
inal castle of the O'Donnells there is no vestige left, nor is there p- 
edge of its locality. 

THE END. 



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